


Tunnel Vision (but only for you)

by FatNerdCatBird



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Ethical Dilemmas?, Falling In Love, Interspecies, Language Barrier, Love at First Sight, M/M, Merman!Daichi, Nerd!Kuroo, Slow Build, Slow Burn, That's canon though, insignificant character death, kind of, oh man is this slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:54:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24819478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FatNerdCatBird/pseuds/FatNerdCatBird
Summary: Captain Kuroo Tetsurou aboard the merchant ship Nekoma unintentionally reels in something much more valuable than the commodity treasures he trades. However, what poses as a simple aquatic creature may be more than meets the eye - and just about enough to catch the attention of the naturalist Kuroo is at heart.
Relationships: Kuroo Tetsurou/Sawamura Daichi
Comments: 39
Kudos: 124





	1. and then I found you

**Author's Note:**

> playlist available now!!!
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/65EyXmq92q91sCEYZE3m5E?si=-Eu63tTPT6aLy9g76QNFoA

Kuroo stares. 

Kuroo stares as his grip slackens on the salt-ridden rope, as his left foot slips back on the slippery deck so that he slides a few inches back on the deck of the _Nekoma_. 

He stares at the small weighted net on his ship, full of algal plants and fresh fish and ‒ 

He stares, until he has no choice but to believe his eyes. Yet, the more he stares the less he is sure of what painting the fantastical creature has crawled out of, or what legend had it arose out of. There are a variety of words to describe the piscean creature ‒ siren, finfolk, merman, _myth_ ‒ but each and every one escapes Kuroo. He wonders if he's dreaming, but the hot noon sun beats down on his skin and the smell of salt in the air is as strong as ever. 

The creature is all strong muscle and lithe limbs and sharp teeth, tracking each member of the crew with impossibly dark eyes. Tanned skin is riddled with goosebumps as salt water drops down the creature's tense arms, from its short brown hair. Scaled claws dig into the wooden panels of the deck as the living myth makes no doubt of his aggression, teeth bared as its human upper body lays flat down. Dark lips are curled back in a snarl, and the scales on the siren’s tail catches the rays of the overhead sun. 

The crew aboard the _Nekoma_ is as unnaturally still and silent as it's captain, frozen in place as the boat rocks gently to the sounds of the ocean. It does nothing to drown out the high-pitched noise the creature is making, a hissing-grinding-crackling that makes Kuroo’s ears itch and his skin prickle. 

Nonetheless, he is frozen in place, mesmerized by the near-rhythmic thumping of its tail against the deck. From their proximity, he can see shimmering black scales overlaid with varied splotches of colors, ranging from autumn orange to crimson red fading to chocolate brown at the tips of his tail fins. 

With the sea breeze rustling through his hair and the cries of gulls in his ears, Kuroo thinks that the creature is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. 

The surreal moment is broken as Kuroo’s chief mate speaks up. “It’s injured,” Kai says, but makes no move to step towards the still-hissing creature. There’s a particularly large rusted hook embedded into its shoulder, high enough that it would be painful if not impossible to pull out oneself. It’s Yaku that takes a bold step forward, steady and sure, and the creature pushes itself flatter against the ground, threatening noise increasing in both pitch and volume. 

“Must've gotten caught on the hooks in our fishing net,” Fukunaga thinks out loud, and Kuroo watches in equal parts awe and dread as Yaku reaches out for the metal protrusion with a steady hand. The _Nekoma_ ’s engineer is of short stature, but his tenacity and ferocity makes up for the missing build the average sailor boasts of. 

Still, there is only so much verve can achieve, and Yaku hisses a curse as he snaps his bleeding arm back, pressing down against the scratches with his other hand. The creature’s clawed hand is still suspended in the air, eyes frantically trying to track all ten of them. 

The entire crew is silent for another beat. Then, “Woah, what kind of fish is this?”

“Lev,” Yaku says with a pained tone Kuroo suspects is not from his injury. “Please don't be your stupid self. Not now.”

“Is that,” Inuoka’s cheerfully loud voice is now soft and unsure. “Is it a siren?”

“It certainly isn't singing,” Kenma says, “and neither is it female.”

The creature has stopped making the warning noise, but is by no means calm. Instead, it emits an occasional high whine, eyes hurriedly looking around the ship between glares aimed at the crew members. It looks towards Kuroo, holding his gaze, and Kuroo doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe. The creature’s eyes are dilated small, as if looking directly overhead at the sun, and he whines again as they stare at each other. 

“Kuroo?” The captain startles at the hand that lands on his shoulder, dragging him back to reality. Nine faces stare at him, ranging from expectant to exasperated. Kai squeezes his shoulder again before dropping his hand. “What should we do?”

Kuroo forcefully drags his eyes from the creature’s face and focuses on the injured shoulder. The thin metal digs in painfully, digging deep into muscle and skin and tendon without an exit wound. Kuroo keeps his voice low and steady, a mindful mumble. “We should take the hook out. It’s still bleeding.”

The captain steps forward and the creature hisses at him, raising his arm in a preemptive strike, but all it does is cut the hook deeper into its own shoulder.

“And how do you suggest we do that?”

Kuroo doesn't bother making a face at Yaku’s sarcastic tone; he can't seem to take his eyes off of the creature. “I can grab it's arms, hold it down. Kai, can you ‒ ”

His chief mate is already standing next to him, giving him a nod. Kuroo motions for Yamamoto to stand by. “I'm going for the arms. Think you're up for grabbing the tail?”

Yamamoto opens his mouth with a sharp grin to exclaim something, but Kenma quickly covers his mouth with a hand. His voice mirrors Kuroo’s, low and gentle. “Be quiet. Unless you want it to notice.”

Taketora momentarily made a face like he wanted to retort, but thinks better of it and instead slowly slides his way over so that he’s to the creature’s side rather than its front. It stares at him suspiciously for a second before turning back to look at Kuroo. Muscles bunch as the creature tenses its arms preparing for movement, and Kuroo knows it's now or never. 

He snaps his legs forward, body moving in a controlled burst of energy as his hands wrap around the creature’s wrists to hold him down. He’s almost bucked off as the creature thrashes violently against him ‒ deceptively strong with panic ‒ but Yamamoto just a step behind him, tightly gripping the tapered end of the tail down and pressing a knee down for extra support. It takes all their strength, and then some to keep the creature from breaking out of their hold. It's hissing again, clicking its teeth as it growls at Kuroo. 

Kai is there immediately after, using a broad hand to hold down the creature’s lower back and the other to grip the large hook. The creature jerks against the motion with a sharp cry, but he's stuck between the three men. Kuroo finds himself staring into a human face, twisted in pain and frustration. A small voice in Kuroo’s head wants to ask its name, illogical as it is, but the expression turns from a wince to a vengeful frown. The creature focuses completely on Kuroo, eyes dark and threatening. 

Kai’s hand slips on the thin bloodied metal, and he gives a small grunt as the creature attempts to buck them off again. “Kuroo.”

The captain can't find it in himself to speak as he holds the creature’s gaze, so he nods and pulls his hands back across the deck, stretching the tanned arms in his grip. The motion jolts the hook in its shoulder, and the creature gives another high cry, whining almost pitifully when he can’t budge between Kuroo and Yamamoto. Kai manages to grip the hook again, and slides it out carefully slow. 

“This is almost sad to watch,” Kenma mutters. Kuroo gives a grunt as Yamamoto shouts a curse in an attempt to keep the siren still. 

“Kai,” Yaku says, “just yank it out.”

“It's almost out,” Kai mumbles, and Kuroo watches as the hook finally slips out of the creature’s shoulder. There's a gush of blood that follows, along with a high hiss. The creature, now free of the foreign object, lifts its upper body in an impressive display of strength to snap at Kuroo with the last defense he has left. Kuroo jerks his knee to the side, just in time for sharp teeth to catch on the cloth of his trousers instead of the soft tissue of his knee, except the motion causes him to accidentally let go of one of its arms. 

The freed hand whips back, aiming for Kai. Kuroo valiantly attempts to grab the arm again but only succeeds in smacking Kai, who backs up to avoid the scaled claws and knocks Yamamoto off-balance, whose grip on the creature slackens. It’s all just enough for the creature to whip its tail out of their grip and into the two crewmates, knocking the wind out of them. 

Kuroo is similarly breathless as his body refuses to exert the strength necessary to hold down the creature himself. He manages to plant his knees on the wood, ignoring the pain, and pulls back hard to drag the creature away from Kai and Yamamoto before it can seriously injure them. He can see the gleam off of each sharp tooth as they near his face, much too close for comfort. This is it, he thinks, this is how he becomes another lost soul to the mythical legend somehow on his deck. 

There’s a loud _thud_ , and suddenly Kuroo is pinned down by the creature. Kuroo’s breath escapes him in a loud exhale, and it takes a minute for his heartbeat to calm down enough to feel the telltale breathing of the siren, now unconscious. He struggles under the dead weight but manages to squirm backwards until he has enough room to lift his head and meet the eyes of a stern-faced Yaku. He’s holding a wooden oar. 

“You were being useless,” the engineer sighs before handing off the impromptu weapon to a wide-eyed Lev. “Now what?”

Kenma is the one who voices the question lingering in the air between all of them. “Are we going to release it?”

“There’s a tub in the extra cargo hold,” Kuroo hears his voice saying. He ignores the confused looks passed between his crew and directed at him, instead clearing his throat as he sits up. The creature is still slumped over him, head in Kuroo’s chest and arms draped over Kuroo’s shoulders. It’s much warmer than a human and radiates heat, enough that Kuroo can feel through his clothes. “Shibayama, Lev. Could you two clear it out and put it in my office?”

The two newest recruits go off with various affirmations of their own ‒ one more polite than the other ‒ and most of the rest resume their activities, manning the sails and collecting the caught fish from the tangled net. It leaves Kuroo nearly alone to struggle to get to his feet. It’s hard to get a bearing on the still-wet wood as he tries to lift the deadweight with him, arms tense around the bare upper body of the siren. 

“Do you need some help with that?” Kuroo turns an exasperated look at Kai, who only smiles patiently at him. “You only need to ask.”

“I swear,” Kuroo mutters as he levels another look at his chief mate, who finally comes to help with his deceptive patience. It’s much easier to wrap his arms around the creature’s chest as Kai picks up the bulk of his tail, fingers gripped tightly on the scales. “Nekomata only chose little shits to board this ship. Each and every one.” 

“You know that includes you, captain.”

“Shut up, Yamamoto.”

They slowly shuffle their way to Kuroo’s office, a clerical room scattered with maps and small trinkets. Shibayama and Lev watch attentively as the two senior members lower the creature into the tub, taking care not to wake it, though Kuroo isn’t sure if someone or something hit by Yaku has any chance of waking up within twenty-four hours.

“It’s still alive, right?”

“Yes, Lev.”

“How can you tell? Is it because it’s breathing?” Kuroo and Kai turned to look at the platinum blond, who only shrugs with a carefree grin. “What? I’m not a medic like Kenma.”

“Would you go get the actual surgeon then, so that you can be of use right now?” Lev gives a laugh as if Kuroo had been joking, but strides off and out of the room with his ridiculously long legs and a _yes sir!_

“Don’t worry,” Kai says, “he’ll mature with a few more trades.”

“Care to tell me how many more?”

Shibayama smothers a giggle at their banter, but immediately after turns to the two older crewmates, all serious determination. “Is there anything else I can do for now, captain Kuroo? Chief mate Kai?”

“Why don’t you help me start the dinner proportions? Afterwards, you can help Yaku with his rounds.” The technical engineer-in-training nods enthusiastically before following the chief mate out. Kuroo busies himself with tidying his desk and securing loose sheets. He needs to chart where they are in the morning to make sure they’re on course for Aomori island. He doesn’t hear the tell-tale creak of the closing door and makes a cursory glance upwards, only to make eye contact with his second-in-command. 

“You’ll be fine here?”

The captain waves off Kai’s concern with a hand, giving a wide grin with it. “Don’t worry. Besides, Kenma’ll come in a bit. Just make sure Yaku doesn’t run our newest engineer ragged.”

“He would never, and you know that,” Kai laughs, before shutting the door and leaving Kuroo alone.

The thing is, Kuroo _does_ know that: he knows that Yaku cares for the newest crew members just as much as he does the ship and its parts. He knows how sharp Kai is, and how he’s the best at training others. He thinks of Yamamoto’s steady enthusiasm and energy when rigging the masts all day, of Fukunaga’s relaxed attitude and sharp wit as he applies a variety of skills around the trading vessel. 

He thinks of Kenma’s keen eyes and surgeon’s temperament that has kept Kuroo’s entire crew safe and healthy. He thinks of Inuoka’s loud willingness and Teshiro’s quiet tenacity of the past year, and Lev’s cocksure attitude and Shibayama’s bright-eyed eagerness over the past two months. They’re a relatively small team but they make it work. Kuroo would never trade his group for any other, and would readily put his life on the line for his crew. 

Yet as he sits at his wooden desk in silence, his gaze is irresistibly drawn to the unconscious siren slumped in the old porcelain tub. Kuroo can’t stop from running his gaze over smooth tanned skin and untarnished black scales, and all of his thoughts and worries circle back to one:

_What has he gotten them into?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, typing furiously on my computer and speaking out loud like a madman: oh you little stupid slowburn fic. I Hate you, I hope you die. I hope you’re happy that I’m writing the 10k buffer scenes needed for the two specific scenes that I wrote in the middle of the night after waking up with inspiration, you utter piece of shit. (I’ve been working on this for awhile, but I ended up writing three scenes (beginning, middle, end) before realizing that all the little details in my head actually needed to be written out and explained? Wack. )
> 
> I have also always wanted to write a language barrier relationships!!! So this is part of that, I guess. Don't ask me anything else, I don't know. What is the general plot besides useless KuroDai fluff? What historical era is this set in? Did I even write this consciously? Who knows.
> 
> also all information regarding ships comes from google images and this one wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seafarer%27s_professions_and_ranks


	2. spinning around you

“It’s a pretty deep wound, but it doesn’t look like there’s going to be any permanent muscle or tendon damage,” Kenma says in his soft but sure voice. Kuroo is mesmerized by the way his hands methodically wrap gauze around the cleaned shoulder: _loop, over, cross, twist, loop, over, cross, twist_. “It’ll have to be changed in two or three days, depending.”

Kuroo nearly misses the implication of the last word as he watches slim fingers deftly tie a knot with the white bandages. Now finished, the crew’s surgeon gets up from his knees, ushering for Kuroo to give him some space. He listens. “Depending? On what?”

“Depending on if it heals like a human.”

“Oh.”

Kuroo stares at the unconscious creature, the way his chest and scales move rhythmically with each breath. The siren looks peaceful enough to be sleeping, and though subdued, its naturalistic beauty is not. It’s been roughly four hours since the fiasco on deck, and Kuroo’s thighs are probably already bruised from the amount of times he’s pinched them. He goes to check, one last time, simply to make sure that this isn’t some surreal daydream or extended fantasy. 

“I’m not going to give you anything for those.” At the surgeon’s deadpan voice, Kuroo absentmindedly rubs the tender bruise until the ache is practically gone. 

“So you’re not going to do your job?”

“My job doesn’t include saving reckless idiots from themselves.”

When he lifts his head back up, Kenma ‒ Kuroo’s long-term shipmate and longer-term childhood friend ‒ levels a look at him. It’s the same look that he received when he dragged a younger Kenma through wild forests in search of rare bugs, only to get a broken arm; it’s the same look aimed towards him when he declared he was going to become a sailor, abruptly selling the remaining of his material possessions to follow the infamous captain Nekomata. 

It’s a look reserved for the reckless part of Kuroo that he can’t contain at times, even as a mature adult and weathered seafarer. It’s some part disappointment and some part exhaustion, but over the years, Kuroo has only come to equate with loyalty: no matter how crazed or fanatical his ideas, Kenma will always serve as the voice of reason that anchors him to shore. 

Even now, intellectual eyes track his face carefully, as if searching for the right words to use. There’s a slight downturn to his mouth, and a small feeling of guilt wells up in Kuroo, though he’s unsure what he feels guilty for. It’s only natural to force a grin, a trick of the trade as an easy-going captain and well-versed merchant. 

“You know, there isn’t actually treasure in my eyes, no matter how much the barmaids sing of it.”

“Sometimes,” Kenma starts slowly, eyes narrowing and patience thinning, “you’re as stupid as you look.”

“So, smart as hell?”

“No.”

“It’s just for ‒ ” Kuroo starts, but trails off. How long would it be for? Until they reach Aomori’s port? Until they reach their next destination? Until ‒ 

“You have to make a decision, and soon, Kuroo.”

“It’s injured, so we’re just helping with the healing process,” Kuroo says, words flat and just bordering on defensive. It makes the crew’s surgeon press his lips tighter, and makes his eye twitch. “It’s just like a beached dolphin.”

“ _T_ _hat_ ,” Kenma hisses out in a low voice, near-venomous, an accusatory finger pointed at his newest patient, “ _is not a dolphin_.”

“It’s warm-blooded, like an aquatic mammal.”

“ _Kuroo_.”

“I know, Kenma.” The captain drops the smirk with a sigh, and drops the facade altogether. He turns to look at the siren again. “But who can say they’ve seen one this close before? That they’ve had one, on their ship? This is ‒ it’s a golden opportunity.”

The crew’s surgeon takes a deep breath before regaining his composure. “We don’t know anything about it.”

“ _Exactly_. We could be discovering a new species of animal. A new family?”

“You have to think realistically, Kuroo. Not for science, but for you. You’ll have to choose, sooner or later.”

“I know,” Kuroo repeats, voice low. Kenma unfolds his arms from where they’re crossed against his chest, and pulls out a pair of rusted cuffs. “I know, Kenma.”

The creature is as still as everything else in Kuroo’s office, sleeping in cold seawater like a slumbering princess of a foreign myth. It leaves Kuroo alone with his thoughts, as he quickly slips on the handcuffs on the still-unconscious creature. The nerves in his hands buzz where his work-calloused skin brushes against warm scales.

Next to the tub, thoughtful Shibayama has left two buckets of sea water, still colder than the air, and two of the fresh fish from earlier. Rolling up the sleeves of his loose blouse, Kuroo hefts one of the metal buckets up, carefully tipping the edge over the wooden rim of the tub. He leans forward to empty in the rest of the water, and suddenly, the silence that plagues Kuroo is replaced by a sharp shrill that pierces through the office. 

He jerks back with surprise or perhaps intuition, and his heart pounds in his ears as a pair of sharp claws slice across the air centimeters from Kuroo’s nose. The talons at the end of the creature’s hands are fully covered in black scales, dipped in ink as deadly and as sharp as a knife’s edge. Kuroo watches for two terrifyingly loud heartbeats as the sharpened hands struggle against the cuff, fingers curling to scratch at the metal. Forearms futilely attempt to rip apart the contraption, causing the metal edges to dig into the soft skin and scales of its wrists. There’s another high whine, and Kuroo finds himself leaning forward again. 

“Stop that, you’re going to hurt yourself.” 

Kuroo’s hands wrap around the cuffed wrists, sparse scales and smooth skin hot underneath his fingertips. At contact, all sounds die off, leaving them in an unnatural silence once again. With not whining or hissing to betray any ill intent, Kuroo isn’t sure what to make of the creature. 

Kuroo’s gaze follows the trail of goosebumps up the creature’s forearms and up its arms. Unconsciously, he focuses on a droplet of water that slowly curves its way down a muscled, unbandaged shoulder and into the dip of a defined collarbone.

They are barely a foot apart, and Kuroo can’t tear his eyes from the patches of scales that shimmer in the dim candlelight of his office. Sparse and random clusters of dark scales on its neck and shoulders grow larger and more constant down its chest and abdomen, until it makes way for a wholly scaled tail. The same can be said for its forearms: tanned skin on biceps and elbows slowly cave to the mass of scales, sparse on the creature’s wrists but completely covering each clawed finger from the first knuckle. The black scales shimmer even in the dim candlelight of the cabin, reflecting hued scales in its fiery oranges and reds. 

It doesn’t thrash, unable to its trapped state, between the hard wood of the tub and Kuroo’s grasp. However, it’s shivering almost violently, to the point that Kuroo has to briefly tighten his grip so that the siren doesn’t vibrate straight out of his hold. As the siren trembles its fins flutter against the surface of the cold water as the tail rises up and over the edge of the cramped tub, like the wings of a large, black butterfly. 

There’s an emotion rising in Kuroo’s chest that he can’t place, but it inflates his heart and presses outwards on his ribs. It traps his breath in his lungs and he doesn’t dare move as dark eyes roam his face, gaze flickering from his hair to his mouth to his eyes. There’s a strange timelessness to the moment, and it either takes Kuroo several seconds or several minutes to snap out of it.

His fingers feel numb for being curled in the same position for so long, so the captain unfurls his fingers from the creature’s wrists, warm and strong and bruised. He tears his gaze from them as he picks up the second bucket and dumps its contents to raise the water so that the tub is just more than half-filled. 

“Are you,” Kuroo forces out of his parched throat, “are you hungry?”

The siren continues to stare at him, eyes wide but brows furrowed, as if trying to read him. The occasional shiver runs through its body, but Kuroo now suspects it has more to do with the water than paralyzing fear. It tilts its head a bit, looking at ‒ studying ‒ Kuroo. 

“Like a dolphin,” Kuroo mutters to himself as a reminder. He gently picks up and drops the two raw fish into the tub, ignoring the hollow feeling in his chest as the creature startles, splashing water over the edge of the tub as it jerks away from Kuroo. He finds himself staring at now-dry hair, short-cropped and frizzy, as the siren stares intently at the fish, bobbing in the disturbed water and bouncing off its piscean tail. 

Kuroo doesn’t realize he’s leaning forward again until the creature snaps its head back up, leveling him with a glare. There is surprise in its wide eyes and suspicion written in the lines of its tense shoulders, even as the claws hands ‒ cuffed as they are ‒ remain miraculously away from Kuroo’s eyes. Instead the creature stares at him, _looks_ at him.

It takes a few forced breaths before Kuroo feels strong enough to lift himself to his feet, mechanically walking past his desk to the extra bed on the other side of the room. There had been an extra mattress and frame when they remodeled their medbay a few years back, and it was too much of a waste to toss an entire bed. It’s old and creaky and worn, but provides Kuroo a place to crash after one too many hours analyzing maps or books, and currently, the perfect vantage point to observe the creature from a safe distance.

The siren tracks his movements and lack thereof, but it’s only a few minutes until its gaze starts roaming from Kuroo to the bed he’s sitting on, the desk in front of it, the several bookcases and cabinets lining the far wall of the desk. It takes another moment for the siren to pause before turning his attention to the fish again, clawed hands going to grab one tenderly. 

Kuroo curses as he draws his back against the wall and pulls off his boots. “Don’t tell me you’re an herbivore ‒ ah, never mind.”

The creature’s attention snaps back to him from studying the tub, pausing right as it takes a bite of the fresh fish, sharp teeth ripping apart scales and meat all-too easily. Kuroo watches in fascination as deft talons skin the fish with practiced familiarity and how sharp teeth chew the fish whole. It’s only a matter of moments before it finishes one, leaving nothing but the scaled skin and spiked tail, and grabs ahold of the other one. 

It’s strange, in the way that the siren eats almost the entirety of the fish, swallowing down bits of bone and all. It’s absolutely fascinating to watch, and Kuroo wants to capture this moment so that it plays in his mind for the rest of his life in sharp definition and acuity. His mind is reeling with lines of descriptions and several choice words of observation, but his body slumps back against the wall. 

The siren stares at him, dark eyes magnetically pulling him in even from this distance. The sounds of the sea are muted in his wooden box of an office, but there is something _real_ about this moment, something that sharpens his senses through the haze of exhaustion, something distinct from his earlier light-headedness. An odd silence drapes over the room, almost comforting. 

Just as Kuroo’s eyes slip shut, body unable to keep up with mind, he realizes he doesn’t have any doubt that the siren will be there when he wakes. And when he dreams, he dreams of warm scales and wrecked ships and a melody as clear as the ocean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this chapter is boring and took so long I was trying to piece together scenes I had written before and then realized that would work better as a chapter 3 instead of 2 so I had to write another 2k buffer so..... I will try to get the third chap. out soon as its almost done. 
> 
> ALSO SIDE NOTE: unless you are absolutely sure how to carefully restrain and treat and rehabilitate a wild animal (not that Daichi is.... but) do not attempt to help or contain it. The animal will only injure itself more with panic. If you see injured wildlife, DO NOT attempt to remove it from its environment, and instead call professionals that know what they're doing. (yes this is a PSA and no I do not endorse what the characters have done, just FYI)


	3. too good to be true

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .......  
> my excuse is that I had a final

Kuroo doesn’t think he’s ever regretted becoming a captain until this very moment. 

Time flies as they near Aomori, and Kuroo has been frantically running across his ship in an effort to captain and chart and coach all at once. There’s inventory to double-check and merchandise to triple-check, on top of the basic steering lessons he’d promised Taketora. It had taken all of his focus to simply pair off crew members and delegate tasks, uncharacteristically distracted. 

The list of chores simply off the top of his head were towering: frayed ropes and rusted weapons, salted wood and inadequate cold remedies. Still, he found his gaze drawn to the stairs leading down from the deck to the hallway that led to his office ‒ to the siren. 

Kuroo was finally forced to focus on the tasks at hand when he tripped twice over their resident cat, aptly named Kenma. 

(The stray calico had wandered onto their ship at port, and no one had noticed until a day after they left; she’d gotten fat and happy on the damned rodents that chewed through all of their emergency ropes, and tolerated Lev picking her up and swinging her around while Inuoka’s eyes sparkled. Even Yaku had softened a bit, letting her purr and rub against his hands. A bit tipsy, Kuroo had jokingly suggested naming her Kenma, but the name stuck. Despite becoming another excuse for the human Kenma to slack off ‒ _“I thought you were calling the cat, Kuroo." “I very clearly was not.”_ ‒ she’s now a valuable part of their crew.)

Even now, after a full day of repairing and maintaining the deck _without even finishing their trade check_ , Kuroo is busy plotting their next couple days’ worth of course on their map. He’s sitting at his desk, cross-referencing between two maps with a variety of stationery, all instrumental in plotting the geographical and chronological course to Aomori. Based on the day’s winds, they’re making good headway; they’ll arrive at Aomori within two days. 

But as he hunches over to focus on rereading dotted lines and scrawling unintelligible numbers in his travel log, his eyes trail to his right, focusing on the tub in the far corner of his office. The siren twitches in its sleep, fitful in exhaustion, though as silent as can be. There had thankfully been no trouble in giving the creature more fish, but it only seems to have fallen asleep right when Kuroo had been absent from his office 

For whatever reason, the quiet that Kuroo enforces on himself as he works on his charting helps him catch his breath, a reprieve from the hectic manual labor required throughout the day. Still, the calm doesn’t mean that he isn’t distracted by the siren, and Kuroo is forced to consciously draw his attention back to his maps every few minutes. 

“Just finish this,” Kuroo mutters to himself as he attempts to motivate himself to finish tracking their course to Aomori. The ship's wood creaks around him, groaning in sympathy. “Captain duties first, researching mythical creatures second.”

“No, you need to eat first.” 

“ _Jesus_ ‒ Yaku.” Kuroo clutches at his heart, stencil gripped tight in momentary surprise, only to be met with one of Yaku’s _faces_ , or rather, his ‘eyebrows of judgement’ (as brilliantly coined by their less-than-brilliant Lev). Kuroo just barely remembers to keep his voice down, then whips his attention to the right, if only to make sure the siren continues to sleep undisturbed. “Yaku, please don’t tell me you were standing behind me this entire time like a creep.”

The chief engineer only rolls his eyes before placing two bowls of food on his desk with a huff. “You need to eat, so put away your maps. You’ve already gone over them a hundred times.”

“It’s only a few days to port and it never hurts to recheck,” Kuroo finds himself explaining. He levels Yaku’s unimpressed stare with a mock gasp of his own. “Unless my diligent, busybody, workaholic of an engineer is telling me to _slack off_? Don’t tell me, you need to see Kenma?” 

Wordlessly, Yaku smacks him across the head, and the taller male nearly falls out of his chair with an indignant scoff. “Wha ‒ Show your captain some respect, gremlin.”

“Show me some common sense and then I will, you overgrown troll.” The engineer’s stern look is just short of a glare. “No more looking at maps, Kuroo. Get some sleep.”

The captain only grumbles, fingers idly toying with the edges of the paper in front of him. “It’s not like there’s anything to lose by looking over the maps once more,” he mutters. 

“ _Kuroo_.”

“Okay, _mom_.” 

Yaku hits him over the head again, just for good measure. “Oh, Lev accidentally cooked all the fresh fish, so feed the creature, too.”

Kuroo eyes the two wooden bowls with curiosity. “Huh. Can sirens even eat cooked food?”

“Just do it, Kuroo,” the chief engineer states with no room for argument, and leaves the room before the captain can retort. 

“ _Just do it, Kuroo_ . Don’t look at the maps that are essential for staying _alive_ in the sea and go to sleep, Kuroo.” The captain knows that Yaku is right, in some deep part of his conscious, but he was never one to pass up complaining. Yaku’s voice is also not that nasally or high, but Kuroo is in the safe confines of his office, alone with his poor voice rendition of the engineer. “Oh, do what I say, _Kuroo_ , because I’m a tiny gremlin that can still throw you overboard.”

He is just about to roll away his last maps when a low sound echoes out from behind him. Whipping around, his gaze seeks out dark eyes, remarkably alert so soon after waking. After the first time it had woken up in Kuroo’s office, the creature had made no noise, opting to scrutinize and bare its teeth at anything that moved in its sight ‒ namely Kuroo. 

Now, the creature chitters, clicking its tongue in varying pitches like a dolphin, and it’s hard not to think it amused when its lips are curled up in a grin. His mouth is just open enough for Kuroo to see sharp canines as he chitters again, low and lively. The siren finally notes that it’s being watched, and abruptly falls silent as it makes eye contact with Kuroo, flicking its tail fins out once. 

After a silent minute, Kuroo half-turns back to his desk, slowly rolling up his previous maps in slow and careful motions. He mimes not paying attention to the siren, low voice echoing through the small office. “Don’t mind me, just talking to myself. Maybe I’ve been staring at these maps long enough for auditory hallucinations. Don’t mind me, master of ship _Nekoma_ , the mentally-insane Captain Kuroo.”

“ _K’roh._ ”

The deep husky voice makes Kuroo jump out of his skin, fumbling with the rolled papers in his hands. Wide eyed and open mouthed, he turns his head to look again at the creature that keeps its gaze on him. It chitters again, “ _K’roh_?”

He all but dumps his maps in his desk drawer, closing it before slowly making his way to the tailed creature. Kuroo’s words are nothing above a whisper, disbelief coloring his voice. “Oh, my god. You can speak.” 

The creature’s grin drops and his eyes grow wide as it attempts to maintain their distance. Its tail thumps against the tub as it fruitlessly attempts to push himself further backwards against the tub with its handcuffed wrists. Kuroo finds himself making soft noises, attempting to placate the siren with soothing sounds. “Hey, hey. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Kuroo stops advancing when the creature bares its teeth, giving a high-pitched whine when the captain is all but two strides away. He lifts his empty hands, showing his palms, but this only serves to aggravate the creature more. Perhaps, there would be a better approach to make. His eyes roam around the office, before landing on the surest thing to grant him access. 

Wordlessly, he steps back to his desk and instead picks up one of the bowls of thick stew, still steaming. He advances more slowly this time, leading with the food. The creature isn’t shivering or hissing anymore, but there’s a definitive twitch that betrays its nervousness. It’s confined by the tubs it's in, however, and its clawed hands curl nervously in the salt water. 

Kuroo stands still for several moments until he’s sure that the creature smells the aroma of food, watching dark eyes concentrate on the wooden bowl rather than Kuroo’s every move. Kuroo has never moved slower in his life as he keeps an eye on the sharp teeth, but manages to make it until he’s crouched down next to the tub, eye-level with the creature. 

He rakes his gaze over the miniscule and dark patches of scales found on the creature’s face and neck, adorning smooth tanned skin like sun-kissed freckles. They are sparse and random and largely unnoticeable from a distance. His eyes are even richer in color, multicolored specks of gold and charcoal in the siren’s irises, the color of rich coca: expensive and rare and exotic. But even stranger so, are how fascinatingly human they are. 

His gaze rakes down the creature’s tanned human face, its large dark eyes and straight sloped nose and plump red lips, and Kuroo thinks he finally understands the legends of sailors losing themselves to beauty and song. 

Kuroo is jolted out of his observations and thoughts when the creature gives a high croon, eyes still trained on the bowl in Kuroo’s hands. Carefully and slowly, Kuroo picks up a spoonful and offers it to the creature. 

The siren sniffs at the spoon, frowning. Kuroo watches in fascination as it gently blows on the stew until there is no more steam, then licks at it hesitantly. His tongue is long and rough, adapted for fresh fish with tough scales. The captain’s fingers _itch_ with the desire to write all of his thoughts down, but he’s holding the bowl of stew in one hand and spoon in the other. It’s a matter of seconds before the creature finishes the spoonful, and wistfully stares at the bowl. 

What else can Kuroo do, but feed him the rest of the bowl?

He kneels there until his legs grow numb and the stew is finished. The creature is more relaxed than before, making happy low croons as it stares at Kuroo. A lighting bolt of a thought jolts through Kuroo as he mentally categorizes the different pitches of the creature’s sounds, and the varying expressions accompanying each tone. Aggression and fear with high-pitched screeching and strange grinding. Low crooning with contentment. Chittering and growling and whining. 

The creature is speaking a language, just not one Kuroo can understand. Which means, the opposite is also true. It had heard Kuroo’s name, and _spoken_ in his human language. 

Kuroo puts down the bowl and leans his weight back on his ankles and feet, staring at the creature intently. He points to himself, and taps at his chest twice. “Kuroo.”

The creature follows the movement of his finger, then looks up to stare at Kuroo. Its eyes are impossible dark but they also betray intelligence, _understanding_ . Kuroo feels elated, dizzyingly so, as the creature opens his mouth to utter familiar syllables. “ _K’roh_.”

He taps at his chest twice again, to the phonetic beats of his name. “Ku. Roh.”

“ _Ku. Roh._ ” The creature stares at his mouth, mimicking the posture of his lips. His pronunciation is much better, and his gaze flickers up ‒ shyly ‒ until their eyes meet again. “ _Kuroo_.”

Kuroo’s breath stutters in his chest as he moves his finger, ever so slowly, to press gently against the creature’s chest. The creature doesn’t move. Though wet, the skin is surprisingly soft, and warm. He taps twice.

Silence. The light feeling in his chest starts to descend at the failure, but then: “ _Da’i. Chi_.”

It feels like something is physically pulling him forwards towards the deep and gravelly voice, a gravitational force stronger than any magnet known to man. There isn’t a word that Kuroo can think of to describe this feeling, this moment. “ _Da ._.. _i, chi_? Daichi? Is your name Daichi?” 

The creature ‒ _Daichi_ ‒ gives a low croon. Kuroo’s breath stills entirely as clawed fingers rise to tap at Kuroo’s chest, tapping twice. Then a hand curls so that one finger is pointing behind Kuroo, at his desk. Grace be damned, Kuroo half-crawls, half-stretches towards his desk to grab the second, forgotten bowl before turning back to the creature. His heart is beating somewhere in his throat, but he is gentle as he holds out the wooden spoon. “Do you want some more stew?”

What Kuroo doesn’t expect Daichi to do is to shake his head. The siren pushes the spoon back to Kuroo and gestures to the bowl with his bound hands. Kuroo frowns. “Stew?”

The creature makes a wisp-like sound, then, “ _Stew. Kuroo._ ” The creature furrows his brows, and makes a high hissing noise, then some chattering noises. He’s trying to speak to Kuroo, to communicate, but he doesn’t have Kuroo’s words. 

Yet. 

Kuroo stays patient, watching the creature gesture minimally and make frustrated noises. The creature is staring at him, irises so brown and dark that they blend into his pupil, and Kuroo is mesmerized by the flecks of candlelight glinting off of the shifting colors of the earth. Daichi emphasizes the spoon again, pushing it against Kuroo’s chest. He starts off with a soft voice, never once taking his eyes off of Daichi. “Do you want me to eat?”

With one final low hum, Daichi lets his hands drop, watching as Kuroo takes a spoonful of stew and eats it hesitantly. The captain hadn’t realized how hungry he was, and it doesn’t take long for him to finish the bowl. It's strangely embarrassing, being seen eating, but Kuroo physically can’t seem to take his eyes off the siren. The siren leans back in the tub with a small nod when Kuroo shows him the empty bowl. 

“God, you’re just about as bad as Yaku,” Kuroo says offhandedly. “I’ve barely met _people_ that like to share food. Do all sirens have altruism built in, or is it just you?”

“Y _ou_ ,” the siren mimics, “ _jus’ you_.”

Kuroo points at himself, “Me,” then at Daichi, “You.”

They are close enough for the siren to gently brush his fingers against Kuroo’s, above his thundering heart. He wonders if he’s lightheaded enough to pass out, but has never felt more focused. Daichi furrows his brows, staring at Kuroo in confusion. “ _Me?_ ”

Kuroo shakes his head; he repeats his words as he taps at his chest, then at Daichi’s. Then, he takes Daichi’s hand in his own to tap their chests again, reversing the words. “You. Me.”

The siren looks all the more confused, giving a high hiss before tapping at Kuroo’s chest again. “ _You...Kuroo?_ ”

“I am Kuroo,” he replies with an enthusiastic nod, “and you are Daichi.” 

The siren looks perplexed, but slowly, Kuroo can see understanding dawn on his face as his eyes widen and lips curl up in a gentle half-smile. It's a sight that mesmerizes Kuroo, and he wouldn't mind staring at it for the rest of his life. “ _I am_ ... _Daichi_ . _You are Kuroo?_ ”

Kuroo nearly shouts in exhilaration at the bursting feelings of _success_ and _discovery_ , but opts for jumping up with a wide smile. His hasty movement startles Daichi, and Kuroo draws back towards his desk to root around for something to write with and on. His mind is already outlining the words, but he pauses to look at Daichi, who makes a soft noise at Kuroo’s haste. “Sorry, sorry. I’m just excited.”

When he sits back down next to the tub, he opens up the spare notebook to a fresh page and dips his pen into a fresh bottle of ink. It’s time to get to work. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it speaks!!!!!!!
> 
> also i'm sorry its such a rough ending, i thought about just adding the next scene but then i'd have to finish that too and it would end up being like 4k words....


	4. gold plated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so. I promise I'm not dead.. just an idiot 
> 
> So I told myself I'll update once summer courses were over, but I procrastinated that week, and then fall semester started and I got swamped and...yeah.... 
> 
> I kinda rushed this (and it's relatively long), so excuse any careless mistakes.

Kuroo starts off with a description of Daichi, humanoid features and upper body though with accessory scales and gills. When he turns the page to talk about the various noises, he finds Daichi staring curiously at his hands. Kuroo stops and lifts his leather-bound journal. “Notebook. I’m writing in a notebook.”

“ _Write’n a notebook?_ ”

“Writing,” Kuroo corrects, and goes back to his notes as Daichi pronounces the word several times to get it right. “About Daichi the siren. Ah, about you.”

Daichi wrinkles his nose, before saying, “ _About_... _me?_ "

Kuroo nods, hand elegantly writing out line by line. “You, my friend, are entirely unknown and fascinating.” He glances up when Daichi gives a low hum, but doesn’t try to mimic his words. His hands are resting on the edge of the tub, body pressed against the side closest to Kuroo. Kuroo tries again. “Fascinating?”

Daichi makes an unintelligible mess of syllables before shaking his head with a pout. It’s a deeply and distinctly _human_ gesture that has Kuroo laughing, nearly spilling his precious bottle of ink. The siren’s reactions catch him off guard every time, and Kuroo is enamored each time. “Too long of a word for Daichi?”

The siren growls low, but his lips are curled up in a smile. “ _Too long_. _Words_...” He trails off, giving a hum but unable to find the correct word for it. Kuroo turns to the back of his journal, and draws Daichi’s attention to his pen and paper. He draws a long line and a shorter one underneath it before pointing to each one. “Long. Short.”

Daichi hums again. “ _Short. Short words for Daichi._ ”

Kuroo laughs again loudly. “I can do that for you.” He flips back to the front, and continues writing his notes about language. _Siren language._ Fascinating. 

“ _Kuroo, writing?_ ” The captain looks up from his journal, startling as a warm claw pokes his cheek gently. Daichi’s frown is back and the bridge of his nose is wrinkled as he searches for words he doesn’t know. He pokes Kuroo’s cheek again before pointing to himself, smiling exaggeratedly. Kuroo stares, transfixed, at a pronounced cheek dimple until Daichi drops his smile to poke him. “Kuroo.” 

Flipping to the back of his journal, he draws out a smiley face ‒ dots for eyes and a crude nose ‒ and waits for Daichi’s confirming nod. He wonders if he'll smile wide enough to show a dimple again. “Happy?”

 _“Kuroo writing, happy_.” 

“Well, I do like to write,” Kuroo admits. He didn't think it had been so obvious. “I originally wanted to be a naturalist but being a merchant pays the bills. My grandparents didn’t have much to leave with me in the end.” 

Daichi gives a low croon, but Kuroo doubts his explanation holds any sort of particular meaning to the siren. He dutifully goes back to his notes, if only to stop himself from losing time while staring at Daichi. He could spend an entire day admiring the siren and not realize for the better; it really is a vice.

After a page and a half, though, Daichi gets bored. 

The captain is hyper-aware of the way the siren stares imploringly at him, but still startles when a hand snaps out in front of his vision. 

Kuroo flinches back, but the talons don’t appear near his face and instead wrap around the pen in his grip. Daichi snatches the writing utensil, bringing it to his face to observe. He spins it around, staring at the droplet of ink that falls off of it and into the water. 

“You know, I need that.” Kuroo’s voice doesn't sound convincing even to his own ears. He makes no move to take it back from Daichi, who is running a sharp fingertip over the smooth metal, and Kuroo simply holds out his hand. Instead of handing over the pen, the siren pokes Kuroo’s hand experimentally, chittering in amusement when Kuroo flinches.

“He’s got jokes,” Kuroo says dryly, snatching back the pen. Daichi makes a dejected face but goes back to watching him. He makes small noises, clicking his tongue every so often. Kuroo finds himself smiling, lightheaded with the need to laugh. “Tell me how you _really_ feel.” 

“ _Re’ally_ ,” Daichi parrots. There's a hint of something smug in his tone, just barely perceivable. “ _Really feel, Kuroo_.” 

“You're actually an asshole, aren't you?” Kuroo chuckles as he shakes the pen free of saltwater. His motions are in vain, though, as the siren flicks water at the pen, getting Kuroo’s hand and wrist wet as well. 

“ _You._ ” Daichi shoots him a grin as sharp as his canines. “ _Asshole_.”

“I can’t believe that you decided to use your extreme aptitude for language for evil.” 

Ditching his efforts in drying the pen, the human simply dips the end into ink to continue writing down his thoughts. Kuroo shakes his head as Daichi’s eyes narrow with something akin to scrutiny, a look far from the wide-eyed wonder he held the pen with earlier. 

He leans forward to grab the pen from Kuroo’s hands again, claws pointed away from his skin, but instead of playing with it presses it against the open page. The ink is almost gone, but Kuroo can make out the beginning of what the siren is working on. When the ink runs out in the middle of the tail, Daichi makes a low chittering sound before looking up at the captain.

Kuroo picks up the bottle of ink, letting the siren carefully dip the pen in before finishing his image. It’s surprisingly detailed for a quick scrawl, a fish complete with gills and scales and a striped tail. Daichi taps the image a few times for it to dawn in Kuroo what he’s trying to accomplish. “Fish. That’s a fish.” 

The captain looks up to stare at dark eyes twinkle, as handsome features widen into a genuine smile. “ _Daichi writing_.”

“You write, and I _tell._ That’s,” Kuroo starts, holding the notebook down flat for the siren to draw on again, “that’s actually a great idea. Why didn’t I think of this before?”

Daichi leans his entire upper body over the edge of the tub, letting his pen draw a line on the paper. He looks like a child that’s just discovered the ability to color, eyes cleverly taking in his newfound skill and cheeks flushed with excitement. He makes low noises of approval, then copies Kuroo’s earlier face, except this time it’s frowning. He taps the pen next to the face twice. 

“Sad,” Kuroo supplies. Daichi quickly scrawls out several more drawings and points at them, lines surprisingly accurate though shaky. “Angry. Spoon. Candle. Seaweed. Ship. Coral.”

Daichi is making soft crooning sounds in between the new words, and Kuroo finds himself giving an accompanying hum. He watches the scaled talons, scrawl out black lines surprisingly deft and strangely well. 

It looks like a patch of scales, slanted and incomplete at the edges. Kuroo tilts his head to stare at the strange picture at another angle, but is unable to decipher it. He’s tempted to call it a net, but there aren’t any even attachments, lines wavy and random. 

“I suppose our language barrier is determined by your drawing capabilities,” Kuroo notes with a shrug. Daichi stares at him, perplexed. “What? I really don’t know what that is.” 

The siren gives a low hum ‒ Kuroo jots it down as a noise of thoughtfulness, or maybe frustration ‒ before gently slapping the surface of the water in the tub. It splashes a bit, and Kuroo tilts the notebook away from the resulting droplets. “Why do you like splashing so much, paper is very prone to getting wet ‒ hey, don’t do it _again._ ” 

Daichi huffs, lifting his hand to skim his fingertips through the ripples instead and Kuroo watches the mundane motion with a timeless interest. “ _No, Kuroo tell_.” 

“Oh. _Oh._ Water.” 

“ _Wa ‒ tuh._ ” Kuroo finds himself focusing on the little wrinkles that form when Daichi furrows his brows, at the sharp tooth that bites into his lower lip as the siren thinks. “ _Ship... on water?_ ”

“Yes. Well, no? The ship is on the _sea_ , which is lots of water. Or the ocean.”

Daichi stares at him, then swirls his hand in the tub again. " _Sea?_ "

“No, that’s _water_ ,” Kuroo attempts to explain. “Lots of water is the sea. Lots and lots of water is the ocean. It's, you know what? It's just water. Yeah, _water_.”

Kuroo’s knowledge is rewarded with yet _another_ small splash, wetting his face and shirt. He speaks out in protest, but Daichi has already picked up the pen again, giving a wide grin as he continues drawing. Kuroo leans the side of his head on his arm, resting it against the edge of the tub. 

For the next half hour, he identifies things as the siren finishes drawing them, speaking until his tongue grows heavy. Kuroo’s eyes slip shut after the tenth or so image, blurry vision unable to focus on the ink anymore. He mumbles out a word but his muscles fail him, causing him to rest his head against his forearms resting on the wooden tub’s edge. 

“Kuroo.” Something pokes his arm. There's a small shake of his shoulders, and the captain’s eyes flutter open and shut without registering anything. His eyes and head are so heavy, and his attention is like a loose butterfly unable to be caught in his grasp. “ _Kuroo_.” 

“Yeah,, just. Five more. Sleep ‒ sleep, five minutes.” The loose hold on his shoulder moves to his hair, gently running through his bangs. He makes a questioning noise and attempts to lift his head, but the hand is a comfortable weight keeping his head down against his arm. 

“ _K_ _uroo_ , _sleep_.” 

Kuroo sighs, and lets himself sink into unconsciousness.

* * *

“Fukunaga needed help with the nets, so I assigned Teshiro to finish them with him.”

“Uh‒huh.”

“Kai finished the cargo rounds with the newest recruits, but he thinks the three of us should still go over the valuables to double-check. We only have two days left until we reach port, right?”

“Sure. Yeah.”

“I need the original plans to teach Shibayama the basic structure of the _Nekoma_.”

“Mhmm.”

“Kuroo, we’re about to crash into a large island that mysteriously popped up in the last few months.”

“I ‒ what?” Kuroo snaps his head to Yaku and Kai before scanning the horizon. Ocean, for miles to see. “Real funny, Yaku. If you have nothing better to do, why don’t you go get the plans yourself?”

Yaku rolls his eyes, folding his arms across his chest. “You’re weren’t listening to me, dumbass.”

“Uh, based on your little test, I _was_ ‒ ”

“What are you even spacing out for? There isn’t much time left until we reach Aomori.”

“I wasn’t spacing out,” Kuroo says. “I was concentrating.”

As always, Yaku ignores him and goes on. “Don’t tell me you’re not sleeping properly because you’re busy playing with the siren. 

“I’m not _playing_ , Yakkun, I’m observing. Taking _notes_ , like a _naturalist_.” Kuroo controls himself enough to not frown, but feels it tugging at the corners of his lips. “He wasn’t even awake this morning.” 

“You sound like a grade schooler talking about his crush.”

“Gee, Yakkun, if you hate it that much why don’t you get the original blueprints yourself?”

“The original plans are in your office.” Yaku raises an eyebrow, arms crossed. “Where the _siren_ is. And _you_ said ‒ ”

“ ‒ to not disturb him.” Kuroo lifts one hand from the ship’s steering wheel, rubbing his sore eyes. Maybe it was the lack of sleep. “I ‒ yeah. Sorry. I'll get the plans. Could you get Yamamoto? He should know the basics of holding the steer straight.”

Kuroo scams the deck for the mentioned crewmember, and finds him waving furiously for their attention, next to Fukunaga and Lev. “Captain! Incoming ship!”

There’s a smaller ship approaching them perpendicularly, notably smaller than Nekoma ‒ perhaps a 10 meters to their 20 ‒ and a light crew on board. Their sails are full-mast, and she doesn't slow in the slightest. The captain locks eyes with his first mate and they nod in tandem before walking off with intent. 

Kuroo instructs Fukunaga and Yamamoto to loosen their red sails so that they’re catching the full speed of the wind; in his periphery, he spies Kai taking Inuoka and Teshiro near the mast. Next to him, Yaku crosses his arms as he also tracks the incoming ship. He hums. “Pirates?”

“Maybe,” Kuroo admits plainly. “We can’t be too cautious. How’s your aim with the long-ranged rifle been?”

Yaku gives him a sharp side-eye, sizing up his words. “Better than yours. Warning shot?”

Kuroo nods. “Warning shot.”

A few minutes later, Yaku is aptly armed as is the rest of the crew. The small ship is only getting closer. Yaku stands between Kuroo and Kai. “Closer?”

Kuroo shakes his head, then presses a hand to the ear closest to Yaku and Kai follows suit. The ship is sailing towards them, no less than a hundred meters away and getting closer. “Go ahead. They're close enough.”

Two sharp shots ring out. The crew of the smaller ship jump into a faster action, a few gathering around to the main mast to no doubt see the freshly made bulletholes. Yaku grins sharp and raises his fist to bump with Kuroo’s and Kai’s.

“Yaku-san, that was so cool!” Lev shouts as he waves around a short blade. From next to him, Yamamoto jumps away from the danger with a sharp cry. The two bicker in short words, and Kuroo turns his complete attention back to the ship.

“Huh,” Kai notes as he hefts his own oar-turned-weapon onto his shoulder. The small ship’s sails are still up, billowing in the wind. “They’re not stopping.” 

Kuroo sighs, and waves over the others. “This isn’t our first encounter with pirates. They’re probably going to try and board the ship, using ropes. Fukunaga, do you have the oil and flint stones from last time? Good. Yamamoto, Inuoka ‒ I need you guys to work with him, and cut the ropes that you can. Kai and I will try to get the others near the keel.

“Yakkun, take Shibayama and Teshiro with you. Guard the entrances of the cargo hold. That’s what they’re after. And notify Kenma, he should be stocking up in the medbay; it's safer for him in there.”

“Kuroo, I’ll be of more help out here ‒ ”

“Yaku.” The captain’s voice bore no unkindness, but an air of finality. “You’re our most skilled fighter. You’re the best at fighting in narrower spaces, and our last line of defense.”

Kai shakes his head as he hands Kuroo his weapon of choice, a small curved dagger, while holding his own makeshift weapon. “You two always have this argument.”

“ _Kuroo_ always says crap.” Yaku sighs but heads off towards the hull. “Shibayama, Teshiro. Come with me.”

The smaller ship is barely a breaths away, and Kuroo can finally identify the grey-on-black design on their raised flag and their sails: the Hornets. 

There's no way that a larger merchant ship can outrun a smaller vessel, and Kuroo steadies himself as _Nekoma_ jolts hard as the pirate ship collides into her port quarter. Their entire ship jolts, making them all stumble as her speed and direction are reduced from the impact. A sour feeling spreads in Kuroo’s chest as he thinks of _Nekoma_ being injured in any shape or form. 

The Hornets, gleeful in their attack, congregate towards the point of impact to ready for board. A rowdy warcry goes up as they use engineered gadgets to launch over ropes with metal hooks and weights attached at the end, using them as leverage points to pull in _Nekoma_. 

Inuoka and Yamamoto try their best, hacking through the thick fibers, while Fukunaga quickly oils down ropes to light them up where the majority were thrown. Nearer to the keel, Kai manages to unhook a couple while Kuroo uses his own dagger and foot to break through the rope. It's as tedious it is as it is time-crunching, sawing his arms down with all his strength.

However, there's still too many to break through, and _Nekoma’s_ port aft makes more solid contact with the Hornet’s ship. Kuroo abandons his efforts on his third rope, yelling out for Kai, to shield the three crewmembers from the incoming rush. The two charge towards the first pirate climbing onboard, toppling him off the side and into the ocean. A second manages to jump from the ship's edge onto deck, pulling out a dagger the length of his forearm.

Kuroo evades as the pirate aims for him, gripping his own weapon tighter before deflecting a second strike to the side. The sharp metal catches on his loose shirt, thankfully sharp enough to rip straight through without impeding his movement. The pirate gives a another loud cry before dashing towards him, blade pointed straight forward. Kuroo sidesteps again, elbows close at his side, and flicks his wrist upwards to slash at the pirate’s forearm as he rushes past. 

It catches on skin and muscle, causing the opponent's weapon to clatter on the wooden deck. Kuroo kicks the pirate’s ribs with his opposite foot and he goes down, sprawled on his back. 

His attention diverts towards a sharp cry from Yamamoto, half-turning to see him up against two pirates. Not far away, Lev slashes his short sword out in flashy moves and useless noises in front of an equally confused and daunted pirate. 

“God, those idiots.” Kuroo body-slams one of the pirates attacking Yamamoto onto the floor, throwing his wooden club over to the side. They grapple for the upper hand, and Kuroo’s breath is forced out of him as a sharp elbow lands in his gut. He grabs onto the offending arm and twists as hard as he can, only letting go when he feels a small _crack_ followed by a sharp cry. 

Yamamoto swiftly deals with the now lone opponent, swinging the blunt end of his axe into the pirates head and bringing him out of the count. From the opposite side of aft where Kai is, Fukunaga and Inuoka drag over another unconscious body and places him next to the pirate that Yamamoto knocked out. “He was trying to mess with the rigging behind the mast.”

Kuroo nods. “Good job. He must’ve slipped in behind me and Kai.”

Yamamoto and Lev concentrate on the remaining pirate together, managing to push him off the gunwale and into the ocean. Fukunaga claps his hands together as he stares down into the waters. “May the sea goddess have mercy.”

Yamamoto clicks his tongue as he taps his axe against the deck. “No use for sentiment or pity.”

“Yamamoto, Lev. Finish up on the remaining ropes. I don’t think the Hornets are going to send any more goons.” Kuroo eyes the unconscious bodies as he watches Kai take down the final one on deck. Two in the sea and five to tie up; though on the younger side, these Hornets were relatively easy to take care of. 

“Captain.” Kuroo turns at his title to face Yamamoto, back straight and expression somber. The rest of the crew present stay silent, waiting for orders. “What do you want us to do now?”

“The Hornets usually send a small group of fresh men to test the waters,” Kuroo explains quickly, “to decide if a ship is easy capture. They don’t seem to be sending more men over, so tie these guys up and continue cutting on the ropes.”

With the final word, Kuroo leaves them with the trust to finish up with the unconscious pirates. He heads over to where the first mate is tying the hands of a pirate, dazed though not unconscious. 

Kai wipes at a shallow cut on his chin, wiping away blood and sweat. “I saw one sneak down into the hull. I was occupied, sorry.”

Kuroo thumps his back twice. “Not your fault. If it’s just one, Yaku wouldn’t have even broken a sweat.” He walks over to where Yaku had discarded the shotgun earlier. Wordlessly, Kai hands him an extra bullet. “Thanks. Time for a warning.”

The captain doesn’t waste time in loading and shooting, aiming for the mast again. The few men on board startle at the sharp sound, turning to stare. From their apprehensive looks and deflection towards one man, Kuroo assumes he’s the one in charge. “Last warning! Leave before we get serious,” Kuroo calls out. 

Even from the distance of a ship’s width away, Kuroo can hear the click of his tongue as he waves a hand. The few Hornets on board jump into action, undoing the ropes on their side to let _Nekoma_ go. Kuroo stands there, barrel raised, until the Hornets drift some way away from them. Without the extra weight, the _Nekoma_ herself catches on the wind again, gaining her speed. 

By the time Kuroo lowers the shotgun, Yaku is standing behind him with Kai. Shibayama and Teshiro are helping with re-rigging the sails and tying up the now-awake pirates, though Kuroo can’t count more than the five from previous. “Yakkun, don’t tell me you just left him downstairs.”

Yaku quirks an eyebrow at him with a blank stare. “What’d you mean, Shibayama and Teshiro are on deck. Kenma’s still organizing.”

“There was a pirate that made it down,” Kai says. Yaku shakes his head. “There wasn’t anyone down there?”

“No one came in front of the main storage. I was standing guard with Shibayama, and Teshiro was in front of the medbay. No one came down, and when the noises stopped we assumed you guys handled it.”

The two mentioned shake their heads when Yaku turns to them as witness. “We were alone the whole time,” Shibayama exclaims.

Kuroo huffs. “There’s no way you could’ve missed him. There’s only the office before the corridor bends into the rest of the...” He trails off, mind suddenly connecting the dots. His hands fumble with the shotgun as he shoves it in Kai’s direction. “Take this ‒ _shit._ ”

“There’s a pirate in the office?” Yamamoto inquires from where the younger crewmembers are gathered. “Thought it was just for documents and extra storage.”

In his haste, Kuroo snags on Yaku’s arm to follow, but the engineer shrugs him off. Instead, he picks up his pace to match. Yaku’s voice is both distant and sharply distinct to Kuroo’s ears as they run across the deck. “No, you idiot ‒ the creature!”

Kuroo almost stumbles down the steep and narrow steps, just barely using his arm as a bumper against the wall to propel himself towards the office door. He grips the doorknob, twisting as he slams his entire body weight into the door to swing it open. The door bangs against the extra bedframe and the light wooden frame bounces harmlessly back into Kuroo. 

Behind him, Yaku bumps into him as he stops suddenly. “Kuroo, what’s wrong?”

In front of Kuroo, two bodies lay, bathed in a tubful of red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also - in the beginning, I noted that I didn't specify a period but I did vaguely think of the mid-exploration period, where things like electricity weren't popular/widespread yet, and so things like guns are rare and expensive, especially in this eastern Asian setting. (yes ship, yes pirates but I refuse to write them as Western characters, I just can't). 
> 
> ....as a side note I accidentally turned this into a multi-part, multi-ship supernatural fantasy series. Considering implementing that into the continuing story? I originally was going to stick to a more science/nature type of story, but I realized that not including a supernatural element would make their happy-ever-after hard to establish,, and then my brain spiraled out of control. Give me thoughts on making this more fantasy based?


	5. what's inside you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry 'bout the late update - school and shit, y'all know the drill. (Also a note: I almost made this chapter like 7k, then forced myself to cut it into a normal bite-sized chapter lol - but this means the next one's gonna be a doozy, just a warning.)
> 
> This fic (now) has a playlist! I made one before the last chapter but I completely forgot in my rush to upload and I didn't want anyone who would've wanted to listen to it to miss it (becuase I know most people aren't heathens like me that reread fics several times). Give it a go! Critique it! Criticize it! Tell me my music taste is weird and that it's shit! Thank you <3
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/65EyXmq92q91sCEYZE3m5E?si=6S2SbL-iQtaDOZFu8Patew

Kuroo’s entire body goes rigid as the siren struggles underneath the weight of the pirate, black scales blending in with the dark pool of blood growing underneath them. He’s on his back, squirming as more hot blood drips down his arm and splatters onto his neck and chest, from where his claws are embedded deep into the throat of the dead pirate. 

There’s a small shove behind Kuroo, but he doesn’t dare flinch. 

“Kuroo? Where’s the pirate? Why does it smell like blood?” At Yaku’s voice, Daichi’s head snaps back, staring up at Kuroo with sharp incisors and canines bared. A high-pitched sound, something like a mix of a hiss and growl, resonates through the room, and goosebumps rise on Kuroo’s arm. 

Even in the dimly-lit room, Daichi’s eyes are dilated to pinpricks. They focus on Kuroo, then at the visible portion of Yaku’s body from behind Kuroo’s arm. 

He grabs a hold of the door again, moving to shut it behind him. “Yakkun. Close the door.”

“What? No, I’m not letting you stay in here yourself,” Yaku hisses at him. “It’s dangerous.”

“Morisuke.” The captain shakes his head, still looking at Daichi. “Yakkun. Give me ten minutes.”

A pause. “Five.”

The door slams shut behind Kuroo, and Daichi quiets down. In the silence of the room, Kuroo can hear his heartbeat in his ears, a telltale adrenaline rush running through his body as he calmly steps towards the siren. He forces himself not to focus on the body, but on Daichi instead. 

“Hey,” he says, softly. “Daichi. I need to get him off of you.”

Kuroo slowly reaches out his hands, placing a gentle touch on the talons buried in flesh. The blood has already started to dry, clotting and flaking off. It's cold compared to the siren’s temperature, even warmer than his natural state. Daichi doesn't startle; he simply watches as Kuroo retracts his fingers one by one. 

Once the siren’s hand is free, Kuroo grabs a hold of the pirate’s shoulders, rolling him off the siren with a grunt. Daichi gives a small gasp, rolling onto his side as he presses his non-bloodied palm against his stomach. There's a glint of metal against the wood floor, almost white on top of the mess of blood. 

Kuroo curses. The pirate must've fallen on him gripping the blade before Daichi gained the upper hand. “Daichi, are you ‒ ”

The siren flinches hard as Kuroo’s hand lands on his shoulder, bloodied claws coming to grip his wrist painfully. Kuroo bites back a hiss, instead relaxing his grip. “Daichi. It's me. It's Kuroo.”

Daichi stares at him, shining eyes reflecting Kuroo’s worried profile. His hands loosen a tiny bit, just enough to get his circulation going again. “ _Kuroo?_ ”

“No one else on the ship with that name,” Kuroo jokes. It falls a little flat as he looks over Daichi’s stomach, still bleeding a bit. There's still some water left in the tub that the Hornet has probably dragged the siren out of, deduced from the splashes over the side and still drying trail halfway through the room. 

There's an extra shirt on his desk, and Kuroo slips out of Daichi’s now lax grip to go and grab it. He wets it with the remaining water in the tub before walking back to where the siren lay. 

He talks on autopilot as he wipes away the red off of his chest and neck, careful when he gets down to his half-inch wound. “It was sudden but unexpected, really, we're a merchant ship so we're bound to come into contact with a rogue band of pirates once in a while. It's funny, though, because I’m actually friends with a few pirates, but they're more a ragtag bunch that _happen_ to stumble upon a couple ships that don't exactly buy their products either, well according to Akaashi ‒ ”

“ _Pirates_.” Kuroo looks up at Daichi, who attempts to sit up with a grunt. The captain immediately puts his palm to Daichi’s shoulder. 

“Hey, stay _down_ , you’ve been stabbed.” Daichi gives a low chitter in annoyance but listens to Kuroo, laying back down obediently. “Be a good boy and stay there.”

Daichi thumps his tail impatiently, but keeps his eyes trained on the body of the pirate not far away. “ _Pirate. Hornets...are bad._ ”

Kuroo’s hand stills on Daichi’s forearm, staring at the siren carefully. Did maybe the pirate let their name slip? “Yeah, the Hornets are pretty notorious in this region.”

The captain follows Daichi’s line of sight, to the patch on his bicep. It's the trademark of the Hornets, a simple black outline of an bee‒like insect with a stinger. The siren’s gaze looks like he’s staring far out instead of at something a few feet away, an expression that Kuroo’s seen in sailors lost at sea and in their minds. 

“ _Pirates, on her ‒ she, on ship...Hornet, hornets h’rt Suga ‒_ "

Daichi cuts off with a gasp and his back bows off the floor in pain. His hands go to grip at his stomach, causing fresh blood to ooze out from the wound. Kuroo grabs his wrists and pulls them away, willing to risk the hiss. 

“Don't touch it or you'll make it worse.” Daichi thumps his tail again as he settles back down, but only huffs at him. Kuroo is half-hovering over the siren, as serious as he can get. “Don't touch it.”

Daichi rolls his eyes, expression gone and gaze focused again. “ _Don’ touch._ ”

At this, Kuroo lets go of one of his wrists to grab the wet rag again. He slowly works on Daichi’s hand and fingers, rubbing the dried flakes off his black scales. They're just as hypnotizing as the first time Kuroo had seen them, reflecting off light a dull shine as an obsidian mirror. He finds himself tracing down from Daichi’s tan forearm to where it fades into pure scales at his sharpened fingertips. It’s unbearably smooth and warm underneath his careful touch. 

The hand twitches, snapping Kuroo back into present reality. Something akin to embarrassment flushes his cheeks pink, and he hastily wipes away the rest of the blood and tosses the rag to the side. He gets up on his knees, gaze somewhere between Daichi’s mouth and neck, before gathering enough courage to meet his eyes. 

The siren stares at him curiously, and cautiously. Kuroo flicks his nose, much to Daichi’s disdain. “I need things to dress your wound. I’ll be back soon, and remember, don’t ‒ ”

“ _Don’ touch._ ” Daichi rolls his eyes, then sighs as he goes lax against the floor. “ _Don’ move._ ”

“Exactly,” Kuroo says as he stands. He grabs the ship’s blueprints from his desk, before he forgets, and opens the door to exit. “Don’t throw a party while I’m gone.”

As he closes the door behind him, Yaku stands against the wall of the short corridor, arms crossed and face impassive. “You talk to it?”

“Helps calm him down,” Kuroo replies dismissively. “The Hornet stabbed him, so I need to dress the wound. Oh, and ‒ ” He hands over the rolled blueprints to Yaku. 

“Huh, thought you’d forget. You have a bad short-term memory sometimes.”

“If that’s what you think, then you’re the one with the bad memory.”

Yaku wacks his arm with the rolled paper before heading up to the deck, no doubt to find Shibayama. “You get sidetracked. Don’t be an idiot.”

Kuroo rolls his eyes, calling out before he disappears completely from sight. “Ask someone to bring fresh buckets of water!” Yaku’s only response is to wave the blueprints without a backwards glance. 

“Don’t be an idiot yourself, Yakkun,” Kuroo mutters under his breath as he takes a short number of strides past the corner and to the right, just across from the sleeping chamber. Their infirmary is the size of a closet, the smallest room below deck, but it’s served its purpose well enough. 

He raps his knuckles twice on the door before opening it. Much to Yaku’s earlier words, Kenma sits in the lone chair of the room, organizing one of the lockable drawers that contain the expertise of Kenma’s medical knowledge. The surgeon also seems to be updating their written inventory as he goes through jars and boxes. He barely spares Kuroo a glance. “Pirates gone?”

“Yeah, we shook the Hornets off. Listen, what do you have for a small stab wound?”

Kenma whips around, taking in his disheveled appearance and bloodied clothing with wide eyes at his question. Looking down, Kuroo can see that there's a bit of blood just about everywhere on him, his hands and knees covered with the remnants of the pirate's blood. “Are you ‒ ”

Kuro shakes his head. “Not me. The siren got injured, and it's probably safest if I dress his wound.”

Kuroo can clearly see the emotions with Kenna's varying expressions, from rage to disbelief then controlled neutrality, and all within the span of Kuroo speaking. “Does he need stitches?”

“I don't think so. It’s still bleeding, but not badly.”

Kenma sighs, then rummages around the supplies. He hands over a roll of gauze, and a glass jar with an opaque ointment in it. “Clean the wound, then put pressure on it until it stops. The antiseptic should act as a minor anesthetic. You know how to dress a basic wound, right?”

“How many years have we known each other, Kenma?”

“Too many.” He sighs, lowering his head once more to count their inventory of different sizes of gauze. His shoulder-length hair obscure his face, just the way he’s wanted since he was young. “If you’re not injured, you can leave now.”

Kuroo gives a wry smile, before rustling Kenma’s hair exactly the way he hates. Kenma smacks away his hand and grumbles at him. “Thanks for worrying, Kenma. I know you secretly care deeply about me.”

“No, I don't.”

“You do.”

“I don’t.”

“Our very own big-hearted doctor Kenma.”

“Get _out_.”

* * *

Kai is waiting for him in the exact same place that Yaku had been standing before, next to two full buckets of water. Kuroo cocks his head. “That was fast.” 

“Teshiro helped me,” Kai shrugs. “Want me to wait?”

Kuroo nods, grateful for his chief mate’s ever-lasting patience and understanding. He really was the backbone of _Nekoma_. “The siren got cut a bit. Gonna bandage him up, then get the pirate out.” 

Kai stills, expression losing its usual tint of pleasantness, and his hand grabs Kuroo’s wrist. “He’s dead?”

“The Hornet had a blade on him, and fell on the siren,” Kuroo explains quickly. “He’s not dangerous.”

Kai searches his face for something, tracking his expression, before letting him go with a sigh. “Five minutes, then I’m coming in.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with Yaku,” Kuroo says with a grin, before cracking the door open and slipping inside his office with the gauze, ointment, and a filled bucket in his spare hand. 

Daichi, thankfully, doesn’t catch sight of Kai as he remains how Kuroo left him, staring at the ceiling with a sigh. Closed eyes peek open, pupils dilating as they open fully to stare as Kuroo kneels besides him once again. The wound, thankfully, had stopped bleeding. 

With careful hands, Kuroo dips the used shirt into the fresh water, pressing it over the clotted mess before gently wiping away the external blood. 

Daichi stares at his hands with the curiosity of a child, reaching out to touch ointment Kuroo rubs on him. With a grimace, he rubs it between his clawed fingertips before reaching out to wipe it on the hem of Kuroo’s shirt.

Kuroo lets him as he puts a patch of gauze on the stab wound, sticking it to the ointment. Daichi is the perfect patient, strangely unbothered by the saltwater, as Kuroo uses the rest of the gauze to redress his shoulder, replacing the blood-soaked linen. The wound is already a pink scar, looking tender but healed over. Daichi titters as Kuroo brushes his fingers over it, which he yanks back with a mutter of an apology at the stressed sound. 

Opting not to redress his healed wound, Kuroo simply opens Kenma’s jar again and spreads a small bit of ointment over it. As he finishes up, Kuroo looks back at the tub with a thoughtful frown. “I'm not Yamamoto, but I am _pretty sure_ I can carry you.”

Daichi drums his fingertips over the gauze on his stomach, chittering low with a small grin. “ _Kuroo_ , _just weak._ ”

“Okay, I _definitely_ did not teach you that. Who are you talking to?” Kuroo helps Daichi to sit upwards, wrapping the gauze around his middle. He pulls it taunt before tying the ends off. It’s not nearly as neat and deft as Kenma would’ve done, but it’ll stay. “Alright, just ‒ uhm, put your arms around my neck.”

Holding his breath, Kuroo leans forward towards, flexing his back and legs to prepare to lift the siren. Daichi, however, doesn’t move and sits still until Kuroo’s less than a handbreadth away from him, staring at Kuroo curiously. The captain pulls back before he can count the scales and sun freckles adorning his cheeks, moving his head instead above Daichi’s unhurt shoulder. “Listen, I know I'm dependable and all, but you’ve got to help me out here.”

A warm puff of air hits his shoulder, before being replaced by two heavy arms. Kuroo places his own arms around Daichi’s torso and tail; this way, he's able to pull Daichi up against his own chest and hip before standing. 

It’s definitely straining, but he manages to clench his teeth and get the siren back into the tub with slow steps. Once done, Kuroo sits down next to him, resting his forehead against the tub’s edge to catch his breath. The pain of strain ebbs as suddenly as it came, at the sounds of Daichi’s amused chittering. 

Kuroo lifts his head, brushing his bangs back. “ _You’re_ not the one that just fought off an entire pirate ship, and _I’m_ not the one that weighs a ton.”

Daichi rolls his eyes. “ _So‒rry_.”

He finds himself staring at the gauze again, lips pulling down in a frown. If his hook injury had already healed, how long before the stab injury? How much pain ‒ 

“ _Kuroo_.” He looks up at Daichi, who's leaned over the tub close enough that Kuroo can hear his whispered name clearly. The siren's eyes shine, not unlike ones holding back tears, and are as clear as ever. “ _‘m fine._ ”

He sits back again with a small hum and Kuroo finds himself wanting to follow him, leaning harder on the tub’s wooden edge. “Are you sure a victim of a stab wound is supposed to say that?” 

Daichi rolls his eyes again. He taps his bare chest with his scaled index finger twice. “ _Am fine._ ” Then, he extends his arm to tap on Kuroo’s chest, twice. He tilts his head to the side. “ _You?_ ”

“Me?” Kuroo blinks, at Daichi then down at his chest. “Why do you ask?”

Daichi continues to stare at him, watery eyes gleaming with the wavering candlelight. “ _Kuroo_.”

With a grin and a small shake of his head, Kuroo gently grips Daichi’s hand, placing it back into the near empty tub. “I'm perfectly fine. No need to ask.”

A knock jolts him with surprise, and the door slowly freaks open for Kai’s head to pop in. He silently holds up an open hand ‒ it's been five minutes. 

“Nothing’s happened,” Kuroo says out loud, going to grab the bucket of water. The sight of the Hornet causes a wave of nausea to rise up from his stomach, and Kuroo bites it back down as he walks back to the tub and slowly tips the bucket to fill the tub again. He gestures towards Kai without looking back. “Help me grab the other one?”

“Are you sure it’s safe?” Kai raises an eyebrow but steps into the room with the second bucket in hand.

“As safe as it’ll ever be,” Kuroo shrugs. Kai hands him the other one carefully, keeping his eyes trained on Daichi. 

With the tub filled again, Kuroo and Kai lift the pirate’s body up and out of the room under the careful and silent stare of the siren. 

It takes a bit of maneuvering, but they manage to get out of the room and up the stairs. Bright sunlight streams down onto the stairs and forces Kuroo to squint against the harsh light, as the sounds and winds of the ocean greet them once on deck. He can feel _Nekoma_ streaming gracefully over the still waters in the fresh breeze.

One of the captured pirates catches sight of them, hauling the body on deck. “Is that ‒ Kazu! Hey, you killed Akiu!”

The others lift their heads to look, eyes widening in horror and disbelief. Kuroo can hear their gasps when he lifts the body to throw it overboard, knowing they’ve caught sight of his throat. Kuroo shuts it out, feeling detached as he and Kai heft the body overboard, refusing to watch the still figure splash into the dark water before disappearing. 

The Hornet that recognized him struggles against his bonds, cursing wildly. Another speaks up. “Shiroishi, calm down.”

Kuroo quietly instructs the younger ones to head towards the ends of the ship, cleaning up ropes and mopping the deck. The one claimed Shiroishi spits on the deck after his effortless struggle, expression no less than extreme hatred as he stares between the crewmembers. “You guys are _murderers_. Filthy, shitty _monsters_ that killed Kazu ‒ ”

He stops mid-sentence, staring at the loaded shotgun barrel aimed mere centimeters from his face. Yaku’s posture is dead-still and his tone is even flatter. 

“Shut your mouth before I make you.”

“Yaku.” Kai’s hand drops down onto his shoulder. “There’s no use in scaring them.”

There’s another tense moment of silence on deck, before Yaku drops his stance with a sigh. He stalks off to the hull with a curt excuse. Lev calls out after him, but Kuroo stops him with a shake of his head. “Just give him some time.”

“Yaku-san always seems fine when I call him short, though,” Lev continues speaking. Kuroo sighs as Kai is the one to grab his tall and thin shoulder. 

“It’s different,” Kai mumbles, just loud enough for the nearby crewmembers to hear. “I’ll go talk to him.”

Kuroo watches them go below deck, out of sight, worry clouding his chest. Still, the deck needs tending to and the ship won’t sail itself, so Kuroo wraps his calloused fingers around the ship’s wheel and casts his gaze out onto the sea. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sprinkles that tiny hint of Yaku's backstory into the chapter for no reason*  
> *also gives all my characters tragic backstories that I will barely delve into in this story for no reason*


	6. not as much as I do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning: I started this chapter to include the ~supernatural~ stuff (thank you for the comments they really fueled me) so this chapter has a very hasty, very lengthy introduction to that. With that warning comes my next one: this fic may be longer than previously expected...

About an hour later, they’re steadily on course again, red sails catching the easterlies blowing down from the south. Kuroo absentmindedly minds the steer, eyes scanning tirelessly over the blue expanses that never end. 

Across the deck, Yamamoto and Fukunaga check over the rigging ropes, while Teshiro and Lev mop and sweep from the bow of the deck, Shibayama and Inuoka from the stern.

It’s a spectacular day, with not a cloud in sight, and perfect weather for some chatter.

“This is like that _kurotori_ all over again,” one of the bound pirate states. Kawatabi, the one that spoke, is one of the five bound together at their wrists and feet in a line against the border of the ship.

“Yeah, well. Least we got away then,” another grumbles. He directs his attention towards the pirate to calm Shiroishi before. “And it wasn’t called _kurotori_ , dimwit. Do ya remember the name, Hana?”

It’s Shiroishi that responds back, cutting off the older pirate. “It was _kuro_ and it was _tori_. _Kurotori_.”

“It wasn’t ‒ ”

Hanayama cuts them off with a sigh. “We were lucky to get away when we did. Most rumors did call them the _kurotori._ ”

The younger members of the _Nekoma_ were doing a bad job at feigning indifference, though all are working close enough on deck to eavesdrop on their conversation. It’s Lev that breaks first, startling the pirates with his overly‒cheery attitude. “The _Kurotori?_ What rumors? Were they dangerous?”

Shiroishi scoffed, turning away, but the others stared back at Lev, faces ranging from wary to amused. “Oh, they were a crazy bunch. They would sail straight through storms and right into island coves. Fought like maniacs too.”

Another butts in, relishing in Lev’s open face of disbelief. “One of them used a miniature canon as his weapon. Carried it on his shoulder and shot it at passing ships while standing.”

“That’s impossible,” Yamamoto mutters under his breath. Lev exclaims the same statement though much louder.

“Naw, not impossible. Saw it with my own two eyes, me an’ Teppei here.” The acclaimed Teppei nods his head a few times. “They had a junior navigator that could tell which way was north with his eyes closed.”

“And their newest recruit climbed the rigs better than a monkey,” Teppei said with a laugh. “Rumors say, one time, he didn’t come down from the mast for an entire week.”

“How did he _eat_?” Lev exclaims.

Yamamoto smacks the back of his head. “You get back to work.”

“C’mon, you’re interested too. Don’t lie. They’re a famous bunch. Y’all’ve never heard of ‘em?”

“I’m from the far south,” Lev brags in a much louder voice than necessary. “Is the _kurotori_ famous in the north?”

“More than famous ‒ She’s a legend,” Kawatabi continues on. “The _kurotori_ was an amazing battleship, smaller but tougher than most, with sails blacker than a crow’s wings. It was the only fleet to survive the Battle of the Turning Tide against the land in the West, and came back with more than a _hundred_ prisoners at the time, weapons and gold and all.

“But, as Fate would have it, she got sunk. No one knows, whether it was a storm between here and there, if another western battleship sought after her, or if she just disappeared plain and simple. Some say, she was taken down by the Four Symbols for having too much ‒ no mortal should be that powerful.”

Lev frowns, leaning heavily on his broom as the others stand behind him; even Shibayama and Inuoka have gathered close to listen to the older pirate. “Wait, so how’s it exist today?”

Kawatabi grins. “That’s the mystery, ain’t it? She disappears, becomes lost like a legend, then _reappears_ , two centuries later. New crew, new captain. They sail into port like no one’s ever heard, carrying gold that could bury a man ‒ and trades it like any other. Hah! A battleship‒turned‒merchant, and they were _good_. 

“They had a taxer that could calculate them fancy percents in his head, no abacus, no paper. He had a shadow too, quick and quiet as a thief, that never lost sight of their goods neither. I heard someun’ tried to lift some of their spices, and half his fingers were clean‒cut off.”

Teppei shakes his head. “Their doctor was sharp too. Know the rambunctious Johzenji pirates? He an’ their captain drank all of them under the table, from dusk ‘till dawn, to win a bet.” He and Kawatabi laugh, as if sharing a private joke. “Doctor was _crazier_ than the loonies. I heard he brought a Deadman back to life with those new light‒bugs going ‘round.”

“A lightbulb?” Inuoka asks, curiosity getting the best of him.

“Bulb or bug or whatev’r. I can’t tell if they’ve got the luck of a God or a Demon on their side. We raided them, once, before knowing it was the _kuro_ and that’d she returned to sea.” Kawatabi shoulders Shiroishi, prompting him with an impish grin. “You fought that mast monkey, didn’t ya?”

“Lost two of my teeth ‘cause that little fucker,” Shiroishi grimaces at the memory. “Was chasing him ‘round deck, when he jumped off the mast then came flying and kneed me in the damn face. I managed to nick their senior navigator, though. Sneaky silver‒haired bastard tried catching the jump on me.” 

Teppei snorts. “I was just glad I didn’t have to face the canon‒arm. He punched Kawatabi in the face _once_ , and he was out for three days, man. Kawa didn't even remember his name when he woke up. He was a real monster of them all.” 

“No. It was their captain.” Hanayama suddenly speaks, quiet voice prompting everyone else to listen. His voice was low and smooth, unlike most sailor’s, and his eyes remained shadowed as he hung his head like a man condemned. “He was the one to fear; he had every single monster in that crew under his thumb, like he was playing with toy blocks. You could tell he’d kill for his crew, and his crew for him.”

Yamamoto snorts, going back to winding up the excess rope as the red sails billow behind him. “What makes you think we wouldn’t for ours?” 

Hanayama continues on, as if uninterrupted. “The captain was blessed by the _Genbu_ , so they’d never sink even in the roughest of storms. As the tale goes: _Her Gale and Might, to blessed those under Moon and o’er Night_ ‒ ”

“ ‒ _She sails fore’er with eternal Sun, her Bow through waters Frail and Fright_.” 

It’s Fukunaga that finishes for him, words sounding second‒nature on his tongue. Hanayama looks up from the deck floorboards for the first time, staring at the young sailor tending to the rigging with Yamamoto. “Aye. You _yōkai_? Don’t look the type.” 

“A drop from my mother, a drop from my father,” Fukunaga sings as a short tune. “Told me to look out for those with the mark of _Genbu_.” 

Hanayama gives a wry smile. “Smart. But I am but a passing wanderer; I serve no one but my own fate.” 

Yamamoto stares between the two of them. “Okay, what the hell are you two going on about?”

“What’s a _Genbu_?” Lev asks as the others turn to him in incredulity. 

Fukunaga absentmindedly whistles a time to himself as he continues to mop the deck, paying no attention to the rest of them. Yamamoto goes to ask again but they’re all interrupted by their chief engineer walking up to the pirates. Yaku holds a large burlap sack in front of the pirates before dropping it at their bound figures.

“About a week’s worth of provision, and a flare signal.” Yaku drops the bag into the rowboat next to the tied men, crossing his arms as he faces the pirates. “It’s this, or you get dropped into the ocean. It’s really no skin off my back either way.” 

Kuroo watches as Shiroishi scowls at them. “Wouldn’t matter to a killer.” 

“It _wasn’t_ ‒ ” Yaku cuts himself off with a frustrated inhale. “Take it or leave it. Your choice.” 

Shiroishi scowls to say something but Teppei cuts him off. “We’ll take it. No need to be uncivil now, eh?” 

In front of Hanayama, Yaku pulls out a pocket knife and goes for his bonds. “I’ll untie one of you. Help the rest into the rowboat.”

One by one, the pirates manage to hop over the boat’s ledge and into the large rowboat, swinging with the added weights against the rocking boat. Fukunaga tosses in the prepacked sack and a small knife, which Hanayama catches with a short nod. It doesn’t take long for Hanayama to cut the others’ restraints, visible in their relieved groans and stretches. 

A two‒pulley system lowers the pirates into the ocean, and the attaching ropes are let go at the rowboat lands in the relatively calm waters. It rocks with the waves created from the moving _Nekoma_ , and it doesn’t take long for the large merchant ship to outrun the small vessel, steadily overtaking in speed. 

The younger _Nekoma_ members watch them go, and Lev waves enthusiastically with his mop. Even Fukunaga lifts his hand in a still and silent wave, before chuckling to himself and going back to deck. 

Kuroo says nothing as he watches them get back to their duties, joking with each other lightheartedly. From behind him, Kai taps his shoulder with a smile. “You’re a few degrees off from northeast.” 

“There is no way you can possibly tell without a compass ‒ which you have in your hand.” 

Kai laughs, clasping Kuroo’s shoulder and passing him the instrument. “I think it’d be good to go over our inventory again.”

“The pirates didn’t get anything, right?”

“Doesn’t hurt to check,” Kai shrugs. “Meet us down when you’re done.”

Kuroo nods his assent, before turning his attention to the impossible blue of the open expanse of the sea before him. 

Two hours later, he’s finishing up the last of their trade check, going through carefully labeled and stacked boxes in one of their three main storage rooms, the golden innards of the _Nekoma_. Though the less costly items have been checked before by the other members of the crew, it’s up to Kuroo and his two most trusted sailors ‒ chief mate Kai, and chief engineer Yaku ‒ to go through the more valuable merchandise, western spices and uncut stones. 

It’s Kai that brings it up. “What are you going to do with the siren?”

Kuroo closes the lid of another checked and intact box. His hands deftly redo the cleverly innovative wooden latch, saving them time and energy from nailing and un‒nailing each of their valuable‒containing boxes. Kai’s question slowly slips away underneath the muffled sounds of the sea, and Kuroo almost gets away with his silence. “Kuroo. Captain.”

“Yeah, sorry.” Kuroo mentally counts the number of bottles of spices in his box, before closing it again. He gives a shy glance up, wondering if his two chief mates had even heard him. He finds Yaku and Kai staring right at him, hands still. “What about him?”

“The siren,” Yaku questions, trailing off. His quirks an eyebrow up, mouth turning down in a frown. Kai’s expression is neutral, in some ways weathered to Kuroo’s antics and personality. “You're taking notes on it?”

Kuroo bites his lip for a split second as sudden enthusiasm rushes over him, trying to tame his manic expression into something more neutral. It’s not often that he comes across answers to the questions that stem from his burning curiosity, and even less often that he has people to tell who are willing to listen. 

“His name is Daichi,” Kuroo rushes out, speaking faster than he ever has before to his chief mates. “He’s warm like a mammal even though he has scales, and his intelligence is on par with human beings. He holds cognitive intelligence and ‒ ”

Yaku cuts him off, eyes wide with incredulity. “You _named_ him?”

“Of course not,” Kuroo gives him a look. “He told me his name. Why would I name him?”

This time, it’s Kai who speaks up, expression twisted in confusion and disbelief, a far cry from his usual pleasantly unbiased demeanor. “He can speak?”

Kuroo grins maniacally, reveling in their shock. He manages to hide his expression from the other two, as best as he could anyways, as he quickly latches up the last of his checked boxes. 

He feels like vibrating out of his skin as he slowly leads them out of the main storage room, past the corridor’s corner and to the wooden door of his office.

Daichi, as he had been the previous days before, is in the half‒filled tub, and his sharp eyes lock on the three shipmates that entered. Yaku and Kai stop with their backs pressed to the now‒closed door, but Kuroo steps calmly forward, crouching down on one knee when he reaches the tub. Daichi’s eyes are trained on the two newcomers ‒ particularly Yaku ‒ and he gives a low hiss. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Kuroo tries to reassure, “They’re not going to hurt you. Hey, look at me, Daichi.”

Daichi finally puts his attention on Kuroo, low whine subsiding for a questioning murmur. “ _Kuroo, is okay?_ ”

“Oh my god,” Yaku says. Kuroo stands up and walks back over to his chief mates with a wide grin, tapping his finger against Yaku’s stunned cheek. “Kuroo, what?”

The captain ignores his question and pokes Yaku’s cheek again, twice this time, while turning to Daichi. “Yaku.”

“ _What_ , don’t poke me, I heard ‒ ”

“ _Yak. Ku. Yak‒ku._ ” The engineer stiffens and his jaw drops open. Daichi rolls the sounds in his mouth again, clicks his tongue, and tries again. “ _Your name. Yaku_.”

“Oh my god,” Yaku says again. Kuroo bites his lip against the hysterical giggle, and turns to Kai, only to find that the chief mate has beaten him to his introduction. He points to himself, and says his name. 

Daichi gives a low hum before repeating his name back with a nod. “ _Kai_.” Daichi taps twice on his own chest with a clawed finger. “ _My name. Daichi_.”

“Is he like a parrot?” Yaku and Kai are still staring at the siren, eyes wide. Kuroo shakes his head, excitement growing by the minute. 

“No, no, it’s obvious that he can _speak_ , like a person. He catches on too quickly to not.” He turns his gaze from his shipmates to Daichi. The thought dawns on him as he stares at the siren, next to his first mates, and his disbelief is carried in his tone. “It’s ‒ It’s almost as if he’s _relearning_ the language.”

“That's impossible,” Yaku says as Kai asks instead, “Where would he have learned it before?”

“I don't know,” Kuroo admits. “So it's a great thing that I’m studying him, so I can learn.”

“He’ll sell for a nice price,” Yaku says, and Kuroo’s heart drops heavily before growing cold in the pit of his stomach. 

“You can't,” the captain sputters out, “we can't _sell_ him.”

Yaku stares at him, eyes serious and face set. “Kuroo. We're merchants. Hell, some even call us pirates. We buy and take and sell. It's our _job_.”

“He's a living, breathing ‒ ” White, hot rage rises up in Kuroo’s chest, crushing all other emotion as it threatens to burn him from the inside‒out. “You wouldn't sell a _human being_.”

“We would sell _fish_ ,” Yaku argues. Kuroo almost lashes out, just barely holding his indignant anger back as Kai puts a hand on each of their shoulders to pull them apart. “It’s a wild creature, you’ll have to let it go either way. If anything it’s cruel to keep it inside a tiny cage.”

Every word leaves a physical pang in Kuroo’s chest, and he sucks in a breath to argue, but no words form on his tongue. The captain starts to say something, _anything_ , but his chief mate places a gentle hand on his shoulder, his other hand on Yaku’s as well.

“We'll make a compromise,” Kai placates. “We can get a consensus of everyone on Aomori. Kuroo, you can study him uninterrupted until then. Does that sound good?”

Yaku crosses his arms, staring up at Kuroo before nodding. Kuroo sighs, rubbing a hand to his face. The past couple of days without much sleep is wearing down on him, and it feels like it's crashing down on him all at once. 

“After,” he says, “we reach Aomori.”

* * *

Kuroo finds himself once more in his office, gazing at the piscean creature finish off his dinner of freshly caught fish. He only seems to get hungrier as the days grow, unable to satisfy neither his own appetite nor Kuroo’s curiosity. Even after four large fish, Daichi looks interested in some more. Kuroo shakes his head. “You’re insatiable. You’re still hungry?”

Daichi doesn’t so much glare at him as pouts. “ _Don’ be mean._ ”

“Well, there’s not much I can do about it,” Kuroo shrugs. He jots down an additional line of notes: _large appetite in this particular case study specimen._ “We’ve already pulled in our nets for the day. We could try again tomorrow, but I don’t think we’ll get much fish this close to the coast.”

“ _Coast?_ ”

“Yeah, like land.” A curious thought pops into Kuroo’s head. He flips to the back of his journal again, continuing their transposition correspondence. He hesitates for a moment, before deciding on drawing a side profile, drawing a flat line next to a wavy one, separating them with a perpendicular line on one side. He points to each respective side. “Sea. Coast.”

“ _Sea. Like wa’uh._ ” Clicking his tongue at his own pronunciation, Daichi tries again. “ _Wa‒ter._ ”

“Yeah, we’re on the water right now.” Kuroo draws a simplified version of a boat, all but a bowl with a single sail. He trails an arrow onto the land side, where he draws several stick figures. “Our destination is here, on land, where the other humans are.” 

The captain lets the siren take the pen from him, who scrawls over the two stick figures, adding spiky hair to one and shading between the legs of another. He huffs out gentle laughter at the altered images before grinning up at Kuroo. “ _Daichi an’ Kuroo, now_.” 

Kuroo frowns. He crosses out Daichi’s initial drawing of himself, before drawing a stick figure with a tail underneath the boat, in the sea. “No, you came from here. The coast only has humans. Humans and sirens are fundamentally different.”

“ _Hu‒mahn. Human._ ” The syllables crawl out of Daichi’s mouth, sounds almost lazy on his nonnative tongue. The siren looks confused. He waves a hand between the figures drawn on land and in the sea. “ _Diff’rent_?”

“Well, yes.” Kuroo thinks, staring at his crude drawing of a human. He circles the lower half for the siren. “The biggest difference is that we have legs. You, dear Daichi, have no legs.

“Legs are used for walking, on land.” Kuroo drops his pen in favor of using his index and middle finger to walk along the edge of the tub. He then lays a palm flat and moves it along in a wave‒motion. “Tails are used for swimming. Your tail anyways. Daichi, are you listening? This is an important lesson in anatomy.” 

However, the siren is staring at the closed door instead, pupils dilated. Kuroo goes to question him, but hears the culprit a second later ‒ a small meow from behind the wooden door. He snorts. “Oh, that's Kenma.” 

He walks over to open the door, and the calico immediately waltzes in, rubbing along the side of Kuroo’s ankles. She freezes when she lands her gaze on the siren, nose twitching precariously. 

Kuroo closes the door again as Kenma makes her way into the room, hesitantly approaching the tub. Daichi looks just as apprehensive, watching her mottled tail flicker back and forth. It’s the cat that reaches forward hesitantly first, whiskers quivering as her nose twitches. Daichi lets her sniff him, gently pressing the pad of his finger to her cold nose. Kenma draws back a little but starts to lick the scales over his sharp claws.

Daichi’s expression all but melts. He picks up fast that Kenma wants to rub her face along his hand, and he scratches her until she purrs, tail sticking up and swaying happily. He leans over the edge of the tub as far as he can to devote his entire attention into her, mimicking the small purrs and mewls she makes as she walks around.

Kuroo covers his grin with the back of his hand. With Daichi mimicking her sounds, it sounds like they’re communicating. The siren coos as he brushes her soft, mottled fur, full of wonder. He momentarily looks up to Kuroo, eyes wide as can be. “ _Ke’ma?_ ”

“ _Ken_ ‒ma,” Kuroo reiterates as sits back down next to the tub. The calico immediately comes to beg for his attention, rubbing happily against his thigh and hip as with purr. 

Daichi looks stricken as she walks out of his range, and he reaches his hand out with a heartbroken titter. “ _No, come back._ ”

Kuroo cackles, and Daichi shoots him an disgruntled look. “Looks like she likes me better than you,” he preens. Daichi huffs at him before making more soft mewling noises to entice Kenma. The cat, having made an entire round around Kuroo’s form, makes her way back to the hand promising scratches. 

The two manage to take up her attention for several more minutes, but she eventually grows habituated to their attention and walks away, towards the open door with a final _mreow_. With a long and wistful sigh, Daichi leans his cheek against the tub and watches her waltz out of the room. “ _Bye, Kenma._ ”

“I can’t believe it took you, like, two minutes to decide you like my cat better than me.”

Daichi raises an eyebrow, expression impassive as he stares at the human. “ _So sad, Kuroo._ ”

Pursing his lips in indignance, Kuroo doesn’t resist the urge to pinch Daichi’s nose. The siren hisses at him which displays his sharp teeth, but makes no move to bite Kuroo, only slips his face out of his grip. “ _Why I like Kenma more. Less...asshole._ ”

The words trigger Kuroo to remember Yaku’s previous ones. _If anything it’s cruel to keep it inside a tiny cage._

“Hey, Daichi. Do you,” he hesitates. “Do you want to go home?”

The siren frowns at the unfamiliar word. “ _Home?"_

“Somewhere you come from, and you feel safe in.” Kuroo explains. “The _Nekoma_ is my home. For not just me, but Yaku and Kai as well. And some of the younger ones.”

“ _Kuroo’s home_ ,” Daichi croons, low and reassuring. “ _Home is ship_?”

“Yeah. Home is ship.” The captain stares into his dark gaze, almost shocked at the _lack_ of surprise he feels at the siren’s statement. Daichi just _gets it_ , somehow.

He leans his back against the tub, elbows resting on his crossed knees. The words are drawn out of him, feeling as natural as breathing. “They told me I was crazy, to sell all my remaining belongings and buy an apprenticeship to a ship’s captain. They told me my grandparents would curse me from beyond the grave if they’d known.”

He turns his head to look to meet Daichi’s gaze, only to see the siren scratching away in his notebook once more. On the page he’s drawing on, there’s a picture of a small mound, with a shaded rectangular block on it, and Daichi dips the pen in some more ink to draw what looks like flowers in front of it. 

Kuroo’s breath catches. The calm he’d felt before is replaced with something akin to fear gripping his heart, and it chills his entire body. “How do you ‒ ”

The siren’s eyes glance up, wide and round from underneath his damp eyelashes. He taps on the drawing with the pen. “ _Grave._ ”

Even as Kuroo grips the notebook to inspect it closer, it’s uncanny and unmistakable. “That’s impossible, you ‒ how do you know what a grave on land looks like?”

“ _During, ah...sleep._ ” Daichi’s gaze flits from the pen he’s holding to the cot on the other side of the office, thin rumpled blanket telling of Kuroo’s use. “ _During sleep, I see_.”

“While you sleep?” Kuroo finally tears his stare from the paper, up at Daichi and into his unfocused eyes. “You dream?”

Daichi hums something in perfect pitch, a haunting melody clear and low and longing. “ _Dream of home_.” He looks at Kuroo again, close enough to show the hazel and golden specks along the edges of his irises. They lower down to the notebook Kuroo holds, flickering in the candlelight. 

Kuroo follows his gaze like a compulsion, and turns the page forward to two portraits, two sirens. Neither of them look like Daichi; one is swimming upwards, lithe and lean and white ‒ neither his hair nor tail are colored in, but the latter is speckled in a few places with careful dots of ink. 

There is a darker shaded figure behind him, notably longer and larger, with broad shoulders and dark, long hair drawn to float and obscure his face. While the lean figure is made with short and delicate strokes, the larger is of broad strokes with thick black lines running down his torso and converging at the narrow junction of his tail. 

Kuroo traces the drawn lines with a fingertip, visualizing them in his head as Daichi had. He feels on the verge of tears, but his eyes remain dry and his throat is clear. “This is ‒ it's _incredible._ There are more of you?”

The siren leans his stance to the side instead of tilting forward over the edge of the tub, strong muscles shifting as smooth as running water. He has a sad smile on his face, a kind of wistfulness that pulls at the corners of his eyes. The faraway look is back again and his attention is not where his stare is, somewhere below Kuroo’s lips, and instead in a place Kuroo cannot see. His lashes cast elongated shadows on his cheek when his eyelids blink in a slow flutter, taking all the time in the world.

He’s so effortlessly beautiful that the words die on Kuroo’s tongue like wet embers. He looks like the portrait of a flawless oil painting, perfect and ethereal but this somehow strangely also makes him look human ‒ a lonely soul caught in a grey fog out at sea.

It feels almost as if Kuroo were to grab at the evening mist, as if a human were trying to catch a mirage reflected in a mirror. The delicate silence wraps around Daichi like an embrace and if Kuroo were to touch it, it'd shatter into a million fragments of glass.

Still, his fingers extend as if reaching out to try and cup the entire ocean in his thin, mortal hands. 

He stops as his fingertips brushes over Daichi’s cheek, lighter than a feather. The siren’s sigh warms his hand, and Kuroo freezes as the siren leans into his touch, resting his cheek against Kuroo’s palm.

The siren stares up, into Kuroo’s eyes and Kuroo’s soul. His scaled hand comes to rest over Kuroo’s as a reassuring weight, pressing his palm even closer into Daichi’s flushed cheek. He doesn’t pull away. “ _Kuroo?_ ”

His eyes slip shut as he slowly drifts closer to Daichi, nothing but time bridging the gap between their lips. 

Then, they kiss; they separate, to breathe each other in; they kiss again. 

Daichi tastes like salt water and heat. Kuroo chases after it desperately, bringing his other hand to curl in the siren’s short‒cropped and salt‒crusted hair. Daichi’s hand is still curled over his own over his cheek, and they both feel the purr that Daichi lets out against Kuroo’s lips. The siren gives as much as he takes, and Kuroo can feel the gentle press of scaled fingers against the pulse at his neck. 

Kuroo kisses like he sails, pouring his heart and being out with each and every pounding heartbeat that runs through his veins to keep him alive. It consumes him from the inside out, muddling his thoughts and pushing his heart out from his ribs; there’s a fire in his lungs that burn impossibly even as they fill up with the sea, expanding and spilling outwards like a pitcher overturned. 

He’s drowning for it, a lone stranded sailor sinking down the depths of the ocean that’s claimed everything he’s ever had ‒ his time, his mind, his life, his soul.

They part, just far enough to stop the spinning in Kuroo’s head. Daichi pants against his lips in a similar fashion, catching his breath in the rhythm of Kuroo’s rapid pulse. His eyelashes tickle Kuroo’s cheek as they flutter open with the beat of a butterfly’s wings. Kuroo’s tongue traces his own swollen lips as if to savor the taste of the kiss, of warmth and tears, of Daichi. 

Hand still cupping the siren’s cheek, Kuroo brings his index finger to wipe away the stray tear before it slips down to the curve of Daichi’s lips. As he breathes in another one of Daichi's shaky exhales, his heart gives a painful pang. Kuroo wonders which one of them he aches for. 

He wipes away another tear, but they continue spilling, slipping slowly without a sound from wide, glassy brown eyes that reflect the world. It draws him in like a magnet, irresistible and potent. 

“ _’m sorry._ ” Kuroo’s voice is but a raspy whisper, and his lips press against the wet salty trail down the siren's cheek. “Was the kiss that bad?”

“ _No._ ” Daichi huffs against him, hand trembling long after he stops shaking his head. He lets Kuroo kiss him, lets him work his way up from his cheek to his forehead, pressing delicate kisses along the way. His eyelids slip shut and Kuroo presses his lips gently against it, as another thick tear runs down the trail just kissed dry. “ _I...I don’t know._ ”

His hand slowly falls from Kuroo’s chest, landing on the open journal dropped in Kuroo’s lap. Kuroo can hear the crinkling of paper as Daichi’s claws tighten its grip on the page it landed on. When the captain does open his eyes and looks down at his journal, it's as if he's doused in a cold bucket of water. 

The blank faces of the two sirens stare up at him, sad and lost, from between Daichi’s scales fingers. When Kuroo looks back up, he sees Daichi stare down at the slightly crumpled page. 

The wistfulness is painfully clear on Daichi’s features, in his unfocused eyes and gentle smile. “ _My Yaku and Kai._ ”

“Your Yaku and Kai? Your...friends?”

“ _Su’ga and ‘Sahi_ ,” Daichi says. The siren curls in on himself, arms coming to wrap around himself, and his two hands rest over the fresh gauze covering his stomach and shoulder. “ _In water._ _Ah,_ _sea._ ”

Kuroo pulls back, hands landing in his lap. Daichi looks almost confused as to why he had let go, but then goes back to staring at the image of the two with a sigh. Kuroo bites the inside of his lip. “That’s ‒ they’re your home, huh?”

“ _Was, uh, swimming with Suga and ‘Sahi. We separate. Then,_ ” Daichi taps his shoulder gently, then shrugs. “ _Then Kuroo_.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. 

Daichi stares at him, eyes still glassy but no longer dropping tears. “ _Why?_ ”

This time, it’s Kuroo who’s caught speechless. Thoughts clutter his mind as his heart clenches down on itself, and it’s too much to pronounce. In his silence, Daichi reaches out and grabs Kuroo’s hand in his own. Slowly, he brings it up so that his palm is pressed to the siren’s cheek, mirroring their earlier posture. “ _Why, Kuroo?_ ”

“I don’t know,” the human admits.

Daichi chuckles, and Kuroo can feel the warm breath tickle his fingertips. “ _You don’t know, I don’t know. Together, don’t know anything._ ”

“I should go.” The hesitance that clouds Kuroo’s chest is unknown and foreign, the remnant feelings of a child that he had long since outgrown. It is a hesitance from before he had become a cocky, sure captain, from even before he had met Nekomata; it’s a hesitance from when his father went in search of a mother he didn’t remember, leaving him alone on the doorstep of someplace he thought he could call home. “I should...let you go.”

Still, at this moment, he can’t bear to tear his hand from Daichi’s. The siren gives him a small smile, and it reassures him to no end. “ _For now, with me._ ”

“ _For now,_ ” he echoes, eyes slipping shut as Daichi leans in, lips as warm as sunlight. His heart sinks in his chest, like an anchor cast out in the open ocean. “ _With you._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does Daichi have natural siren powers? Or is Kuroo just whipped as hell? No one knows. 
> 
> (Anyways, That got real heavy, real fast at the end, sorry folks. I was listening to sad music while writing this.)


End file.
